
Glass E 

Book 



__ 



i 

i 



*v. / 



CXL„C 



, 



*t*f% 




GEREIT ?i^H 

n vr J-J -L 1 




rebe:lI/iOn. 




y? 




H 



/ 



SPEECHES AND LETTERS 



¥v 



GERRIT SMITH 



'(FROM JANUARY, 1863, TO JANUARY, 1864) 



REBELLION. 




JOHN A. GRAY & GREEN, PRINTERS, STEREOTYPERS, AND BINDERS, 

FIRE-PROOF BUILDINGS, 
CORNER OP FRANKFORT AND JACOB STREETS. 

1864. 



LETTER TO GOVERNOR SEYMOUR. 



Peteeboro, January 12th, 1863. 
Hex. Horatio Seymour : 

Dear Sir : I have read your Message. Although I belong to no 
party, I belong to a country. Although there are no party inter- 
ests for me to promote and adjust myself to, I feel the precious- 
ness of the interests of my country, and am deeply and abidingly 
concerned for their safety. Seldom more than when reading the 
Message have I felt the great peril of those interests. For I re- 
member that the utterer of its dangerous doctrines is emphatically, 
if not indeed preeminently, the mouthpiece of a party comprising 
nearly half the voters of the Free States. I remember too what 
great weight with his party have the words of a gentleman of 
commanding talents, high culture, multiplied influential .public re- 
lations, bland and winning manners, admired social and domestic 
life. How could I fail to fear that the Democratic Party, if not 
already fully identified with these dangerous doctrines, will by 
force of such commendations of «#em soon become so ? 

1st. I find denunciation in the Message, but no denunciation of 
the rebels. The Cotton States and the New-England States do in 
your esteem share about equally in the guilt of the Rebellion. 
New-England, because she suffered her Garrison to write against 
Slavery, and her Phillips to talk against it, is in your eyes as crim- 
inal as the bloody men who flew at the throat of their unoffending 
country. New-England who, to help put them down, promptly 
armed hundreds of thousands of her cherished sons and promptly 
poured out scores of millions of her wealth, has no less of your 
censure and no more of your favor than have those bloody men. 
And yet you propose to put down the Rebellion ! But how can 
this be done if nearly half of us are like yourself? How could we 
have the heart to do it oven at little cost — much less at the re- 
quired cost — if the rebels are no worse than the people of New- 
England ? And how, if Ave had the heart, would it be practicable, 
should you succeed, as is your too manifest intent, in arraying the 
"Western and Central States against New-England instead of 
Rebeldom ? 

2d. I see you still regret that the Satanic compromise proposed 
two years ago was not adopted. I call it Satanic because it was 



4 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

to be a compromise between two guilty parties at the sole ex- 
pense — and this too an overwhelming expense — of an innocent 
third party. Fresh outrages were to be heaped upon the negroes — 
ay and eternized. The malignity of this Democratic compromise, 
which not a few Republicans also favored, (for there are Repub- 
licans too who are capable of being satanized,) is equaled only by 
its meanness. That they, who could propose further and greater 
crimes against the guiltless and helpless, could still make much 
account of their Bibles and Churches, argues either their match- 
less delusion or their matchless brazenness. I do not say they 
would have made themselves better by burning up their Bibles 
and Churches : but I do say that they would have thereby made 
themselves infinitely more consistent. 

3d. " The claim of power under martial law " you indignantly 
and utterly refuse tp admit. You say that this claim " asserts 
that the President may in his discretion declare war." I do not 
believe that it does, and I never before heard that it does. You 
say that it " exalts the military power of the President above his 
Constitutional rights." I reply that this power is specifically one 
of those rights, inasmuch as the Constitution makes him the Head 
of the Army. I admit that he has no other official rights than 
what the Constitution gives him ; and you should admit that it is 
only from martial law, or, in other words, the law of civilized war- 
fare, that he can learn the measure of his rights as Head of the 
Army. You say that this " measure is fixed by the Constitution." 
Rather is it fixed by this martial law which you disparage. It 
also changes with this law, which changes with the progress of 
civilization. It is true that Congress has power to prescribe rules 
for war. But, on the other hand, it is not only true that it could 
not provide for a large share of the cases in which the Head of the 
Army might find himself; but also true that this power of 
Congress is to be exercised within the limits and according to the 
character of martial law. So long as that law shall forbid the 
poisoning of food or water, or the killing of prisoners, or the sell- 
ing of them into slavery, Congress has no power to authorize these 
barbarisms. That a nation may carry on war according to its own 
laws, be they what they will, Christendom would never suffer. 
These laws must be conformed to the law of civilized warfare. If 
it is true, as recently reported, that the rebels shot twenty prison- 
ers because they were black, and if also their government shall 
approve it, then will this enormous violation of the conventions of 
war not only go far to reveal the character of the rebels to the 
eyes of Europe ; but it will also go far to damage their cause with 
her. 

4th. Scouting as you do the doctrine of martial law, it is not 
strange that you deny the right of the Head of the Army to lay 
hands, even in time of war, on persons in a loyal State. Indeed, 
you do not admit that he may on persons in a revolted one. You 
decline saying whether such a State has lost any of its rights. 
Your language clearly implies that it has not lost them all, Here, 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 5 

as elsewhere in the Message, you treat the rebels as more " sinned 
against than sinning." Doubtless you hold that State sovereignty 
can novcr die: — no, not even in a State whose people have all 
turned traitors. Possibly, however, you would admit that the 
Head of the Army has the right to dispose of the hundred Missouri 
traitors, who just within the north line, of Arkansas are plotting 
and promoting the destruction of our army and country. But 
how farcical the distinction that he may not dispose of them if, 
availing themselves of your theory, they return a mile, and claim 
that they can now perpetrate their treason with impunity, because 
they are again in their loyal State of Missouri ! Moreover, Mis- 
souri might, at the time, be the principal seat of the war, and the 
very State in which traitors could most peril and damage our 
cause. Whilst writing this letter, I learn that Springfield in Mis- 
souri is besieged by rebels. Does not our army there need the 
right to make the quick and sure military dispositions of both 
open and suspected traitors ? Surely it does : and what folly, not 
to say what treason, to deny the right, simply because Springfield 
is in one of the really or nominally loyal States! Upon your 
theory a single State, and though no larger than Rhode Island or 
Delaware, might, under its mask of loyalty, by harboring traitors 
and protecting their operations, accomplish the betrayal of the 
country into the hands of the enemy. Surely, surely, our nation 
could not have meant to leave herself at such fatal disadvantage. 
She could not have failed to mean that, in time of war, her military 
power should be free everywhere within her borders to deal with 
traitors in its own sure and summary ways where they could not 
safely be intrusted to slow, uncertain, and what, even though 
in a professedly loyal State, might prove to be disloyal civil pro- 
ceedings. If it be but one State that has broken out in Avar against 
the nation, the war power nevertheless is entitled to its paramount 
rule in every State so long as the war shall continue. So long it 
must have the right to practice in every State its own means for 
saving all the States. The military power may not dispose of a 
man in a loyal State ! Amazing error ! It may not only arrest 
him, but reduce his dwelling to ashes. The Head of the Army 
may, and should, order the arrest of the people of Chambersburgh, 
ay and the burning of their town, if he is convinced that it is, and 
if unburnt will remain, a nest of traitors. Had it been your pur- 
pose so to cripple the President and his army, as to render the 
country an easy prey to its enemy, you could not have written 
more effectually to this end than you have done. You say : "The 
unlimited, uncontrolled despotic power claimed under martial law 
is of itself a reason why it can not be admitted." The answer is, 
that for this very reason the power must be admitted. No nation 
ever did or ever can stand, that does not make martial law su- 
preme in time of war. The main reason why the comparatively 
petty South is still able to resist the gigantic North, is that the 
one has and the other has not a Democratic Party to hold it back 
from an unrestricted and successful prosecution of the war. The 



6 GEEEIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

rebels " let slip their clogs of war." But the Democrats are con- 
stantly intent on leashing ours. You will argue the danger of the 
abuse of this martial law. But that will be no argument against 
the necessity of the law. It will be an argument only against the 
madness of running rashly into war. 

5th. You deny the right of the Head of the Army to proclaim 
liberty to the slaves of loyalists. You seem to believe that our 
government must not only not intend injuries to loyalists, but 
must so conduct the war that not even incidental injuries, though 
afterward paid for, shall ever befall them. The military com- 
mander is however at as full liberty to burn the dwelling of the 
loyalist as of the rebel, if in his judgment the necessities of Avar 
call for it. It is his right to weaken the foe by calling away from 
him white or red or black men. He may strengthen his ranks by 
inviting to them the minor sons of loyal fathers and the appren- 
tices of loyal masters. But if he may invite these to break away 
from their just and natural relations, how much more may he in- 
vite slaves, be it those of rebels or loyalists, to break away from 
their infinitely unjust and unnatural relations ! He may not think 
the slaves to be in any wise fit for his ranks. He may (and this 
would be an entirely justifying reason) invite them to leave their 
rebellious or loyal masters simply because he would thereby re- 
duce the force which produces the food and other elements of 
Southern subsistence and Southern success. In all this the com- 
mander would not be saying that the relation of master and slave 
is any less moral than the other relations referred to. He would 
but be saying that he feels bound to do whatever he can in ac- 
cordance with the laws and usages of civilized warfare to weaken 
his foe and strengthen himself. 

6th. Our work, as you interpret it, is to save the Constitution 
as it was and to " restore our Union as it was before the outbreak 
of the war." Right here, at this great error, is it probable that our . 
nation will perish, if perish it must. The breaking out of the 
Rebellion found the nation so debauched by slavery as to be in- 
capable of meeting the Rebellion on the one square and simple 
itsue of putting it down. For thirty or forty years it had cher- 
ished, not to say worshiped, slavery : and nearly all its contests 
during that time for the Constitution and the Union were virtually 
contests for slavery. Hence she had scarcely come to blows with 
the South before the North found her people divided by feigned, 
false, impertinent and ruinous issues. Loud and incessant was the 
cry, that the Constitution and Union must be restored. The 
Democrats and pro-slavery Republicans meant a restoration to 
the intensely pro-slavery interpretation that the one and to the in- 
tensely pro-slavery character that the other had reached when the 
Rebellion broke out. The anti-slavery Republicans were for re- 
storing the Constitution and Union to what they were held to be 
in those early days of the Republic, when slavery was looked upon 
as sectional and liberty national. A part of the abolitionists said 
that the Constitution is anti-slavery, and that therefore in the 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 7 

name of the Constitution, as well as in the name of God, the Union 
should also be anti-slavery. And another part said that the Con- 
stitution is pro-slavery, and that they preferred no Union :it all to 
a Union under a pro-slavery Constitution. 

Oh ! had we but been uneorrupted by slavery, how quickly would 
we have put down the Rebellion, if indeed there could in that 
case, have been a Rebellion to put down ! We should then have 
wasted no time, and produced no division amongst ourselves, by 
talking about the Union, the Constitution, or even the Country. 
Our one purpose then would have been to put down the 
rebels — and to put them down irrespectively of the bearing it 
might have on whatever interests. Naked plunderers and murder- 
ers were these entirely un wronged rebels: and they should have 
been put down with as total a disregard of consequences, as would! 
characterize the single purpose of a stern lather in putting down 
his revolted child. "Who doubts that with such a disregard they 
had been put down instantly ? Suppose that scoundrels in Utica — ■ 
your adopted and my native home — had, with arms in their hands, 
and using them too, seized her funds, her fire-engines, and her 
other corporate property, and that you had, at the time, been her 
Mayor ; would you have sent to the Common Council a Message 
of the tone and character of that you have just sent to the Legis- 
lature ? Would you have sought in it to divide her citizens upon 
a multiplicity of issues respecting the future condition of her Fire 
Department, her funds and other interests? Oh no! oh no!! 
You could have made no Democratic and no other gain by such 
an insane policy. You would, beyond a doiibt, have sought to 
unite them in the one purpose and one endeavor to subdue and 
punisli the miscreants ; ay, to subdue and punish them, come what 
might of Fire Department, Funds, or even Utica herself. I am 
wrong — they would already have been thus united. Such union 
would have been the necessary result of the outrage. Only bad 
counsels and partisan influences could have disunited them. The 
people of the North were united when they heard of the bombard- 
ing of Sumter. But alas our good and patriotic President tem- 
porized ! The spirit, which should have been taken at the flood, 
was allowed time to subside. Hundreds of thousands of lives, 
and directly and indirectly thousands of millions of dollars have 
already been the penalty of this mistake: and only too reasonable . 
is the fear that the loss of the nation will be needed to complete 
the penalty. How surely and how quickly would he at that time 
but for the timidity and hesitancy, which grew out of his pro- 
slavery education, have saved our wealth and toil from this oppres- 
sive taxation, our tens of thousands of bereaved families from their 
sorrows, and our country from the appalling prospect of her ruin! 
The Rebellion should have been shot dead at once. Whoever 
denies it proves therein that lie is insensible of its infernal charac- 
ter, and knows not how to deal with such a crime. Or rather, 
whoever denies it makes room thereby for the suspicion that he 
sympathizes with the Rebellion and is a participant in the crime. 



8 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

At once should the President have brought out the Big Emanci- 
pation Gun : and he should have so charged it, and so aimed it, as 
not to spare one shred of slavery in all the land. The Rebellion 
would have been ended by the first fire. And what right had the 
rebels to our shrinking and delay ? — rebels who, without the least 
provocation, so malignantly and murderously struck at our all? — 
at the life of our country, and therefore at our all ? 

7th. What a sad exhibition of the power of ambition and party 
over a great intellect, combined with a gentle and refined spirit, is 
your insisting that slavery shall be reestablished ; that the South- 
ern " elements of production must be unimpaired ;" and, that 
nothing short of this u ca?i command the support of the majority of 
the American people " ! Yes, even now, when, if there ever was, 
there is no longer any Constitutional obstacle in the way of the 
slave's freedom ; even now when the slaveholder has himself open- 
ed the prison-door — you are still determined that he shall remain 
in bondage, and his children and children's children after him — still 
determined that this shall continue to be a land in which multiply- 
ing millions have no right to husband nor wife nor children nor wages 
nor Bibles nor schools nor to aught else but stripes and insults, tor- 
tures of the body and tortures of the soul. You are indeed to be 
pitied. You w r ere not made to be what you are. You were made 
to be a strong, and helpful, and sustaining brother among your 
poor, and needy, and weak brethren : not an object of terror but a 
tower of safety to them. You were made not to bolt but to un- 
bolt the door of the oppressed : not to extinguish but to multiply and 
realize their hopes. But alas ! your Party turned for strength and suc- 
cess to slavery ; and so entirely identified itself with it that the 
Party can live only in the life of the monster, and must die' when 
the monster dies. Hence it is that you are what you are. You 
are stone-blind, both morally and politically. You see not God's 
hand in this war. You see not that His time has at last come for 
setting free his sable children. So deluded are you as to imagine 
that pro-slavery will be popular forever and abolition unpopular 
forever. But the Sun of the Seymours, and Rynders, and Woods 
will soon set in darkness ; and the Sun of the Garrisons, and Phil- 
lips, and Cheevers will soon rise in splendor. Your spurious Dem- 
ocratic Party, deserted as it is by the Dickinsons and Butlers, and 
by all who love country more than party, and freedom more than 
slavery, will soon pass away, leaving History to tell on one of her 
blackest pages of as base and wicked a Party as ever defied God 
or trampled on man. 

8th. In your infatuation you propose to cross swords with the 
President — and this too not figuratively but literally. You threat- 
en the forcible supplanting of the military power of the United 
States by the merely civil power of this single State. This is 
your way of standing by the President in his patriotic endeavors. 
This is your way of standing by your country as she reels under 
the blows of traitors — of traitors in arms and of more efiective 
traitors not in arms — of traitors in the rebellious States and of more 



GERRIT SMITH OX THE REBELLION. 

dangerous traitors in the loyal States. You say that the Union 
must be preserved. But your means for preserving it prove what 
kind of a Union it is that you are so intent on preserving". It is 
a Union for submission to the South. A Union for slavery and 
for the Democratic Party. You well know that our nation would 
have gone down very speedily had the civil power of Missouri, 
Kentucky and Maryland been allowed to override the military 
power of the nation. No man knows better than yourself to 
which side, but for the dread of that military power, the State, 
whose City shed Massachusetts blood would have gone, carrying 
with her both her civil and her military power. She might have 
gone South, even though opposed by a very large non-slavehold- 
ing majority. 

To say that slavery is not the cause of the Rebellion is to say 
what is infinitely absurd. And yet for you to say it is any thing 
but strange. For you are a politician : and as all your political 
hopes are identified with slavery, you love it, cling to it, and are 
ever alert to screen it from blame. In consenting to let your idol 
be held responsible for this horrid Rebellion, you would consent 
to the only death you dread — your political death. Hence your 
queer theory that the Rebellion resulted from the characteristic 
'differences between the people of New-England and the people of 
the Cotton States. I admit the existence of these differences. 
But who can not see that they have, in the main, proceeded from 
slavery? You imply that had there been as much homogeneous- 
ness between these peoples as is found " in the portions traversed 
by the great East and West lines of commerce," there would 
have been no Rebellion. I agree with you. But I bid you re* 
member that this is the homogeneousness of anti-slavery " por- 
tions". For save that one of these "lines" is partly in the skirts 
of the slaveholding section of the country, they all traverse States 
consecrated to Freedom, and only such. I thank you for this 
illustration of the homogeneousness and peacefulness of the anti- 
slavery " portions" of the country — for this illustration of the 
falseness of your position that an anti-slavery portion shares in 
the responsibility of the Rebellion. You further imply that had 
there been between the people of New-England and the people 
of the Cotton States the homogeneousness there is between the 
Border Free States and the Border Slave States, the Rebellion 
would not havebeen. You enumerate the causes, namely, "confluent 
rivers," etc. etc., to produce this homogeneousness; but you do 
not give facts to prove that it has been produced. There are none 
to give. How can there be facts to prove the homogeneousness 
of two peoples, one of whom holds the family relation sacred, and 
the other separates its members upon the auction-block ? — among 
one of whom the laborer is counted to be worthy of wages, and 
among the other of whips ? — among the native adult population of 
one of whom not a third can read, whilst in such population of the 
other the individual who can not read is a curiosity seldom to be 
met with ? Homogeneousness between the Border Free and 



10 GEREIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

Border Slave States ! What imputation could "be more insulting 
to the former, and what more false in the face of the fact that, 
whilst the Border Free States have furnished soldiers hut to the 
loyal army and these cheerfully and abundantly, the Border Slave 
States, except little Delaware not so many, have furnished thou- 
sands — nay some, and prohably each of them, tens of thousands — 
of soldiers to the rebel army ! There is not homogeneousness be- 
tween Pennsylvania and Maryland; nor between Ohio, Indiana 
and Illinois on the one hand and Kentucky on the other ; nor be- 
tween Iowa and Missouri. I admit that the people t>f Missouri are 
coming to resemble the people of Iowa. But it is only because 
Missouri is casting off slavery, and hasting to make her grand State 
the grandest of perhaps all the States, and her City the Capital 
of the Nation, whilst Washington is left to be the University of 
the Nation. I admit that there is a class of men in the Border 
Free States, and indeed in all the Free States, who are exceeding- 
ly homogeneous with a class of men in the Border Slave States. 
I refer to the pro-slavery politicians in each section. Take for in- 
stance Governor Robinson of Kentucky and yourself. One might 
be tempted to conclude that the same pen wrote your recent Mes- 
sage and his — so equally imbued are they with the pro-slavery 
spirit ; so equally devoted are they to the Border State policy, 
which makes the saving of slavery paramount to the saving of 
the country ; and so equally determined are they that even in time 
of war " the military is and must be subject to the civil authority," 
and must be made and kept so " at all hazards." 

I ought to have said in its moi"e proper connection, that such a 
State as Ohio or Iowa will not thank you for implying that slavery 
is less repugnant to her moral sense than to New-England's ; and 
that Western hatred of oj^pression is less radical than Eastern. 

To bolster up this theory you say, (for this is your meaning, and 
the only meaning that would be at all pertinent to the case,) that 
the Border Free and Border Slave States came out as one at the 
breaking out of the Rebellion. This is entirely true as regards 
the former: — but it is glaringly false as regards the latter. Vir- 
ginia went with the rebels; and for a long time there was a strong 
doubt (not even yet Avholly dispelled) whether there was not in 
Maryland and also in Kentucky and Missouri a majority in favor 
of going with the rebels. You are constrained to except " East- 
ern Virginia"- — though you do it in a way so ingenious and artful, 
that the careless reader would make scarce any account of the 
exception. Nevertheless this " Eastern Virginia" is several times 
as populous as the remainder of Virginia. And is it really so, 
that you did not see that this exception, which you make, is fatal 
to your attempt to prove that slavery is not the cause of the Re- 
bellion ? If you did not, then is there here another fact of the 
stone-blindness which has come upon you. Why did Western 
Virginia cast in her lot with theNorth ? Because she has but half 
a dozen thousand slaves, and wants to get rid of them. And why 
did Eastern Virginia go with the South'? Because she has several 



GERRIT SMITH OX THE REBELLION. 11 

hundred thousand slaves, ami wants to hold and multiply tlieni. 
Can you doubt that Eastern Virginia, had her slave population 

been as sparse as that of Western Virginia, would have cortie 
North? Can you doubt that Western Virginia, had hers been as 
dense as that of Eastern Virginia, would have gone South? 

That the Western and Central Free States "enlisted* warmly 
in a war for the Union and Constitution:' 1 admit. But your im- 
plication that NewvEngland did not is baldly ami cruelly false. 
That the Administration has abandoned its "sole purpose to 
restore the Union and maintain the Constitution" is a slander. I 
had no part in bringing it into power, but not the less ready am I 
to do it justice. And if, as you substantially say, " the Central and 
Western States" have hi this gloomy! hour, when to stand by the 
country is to stand by the Administration, given the cold shoulder 
to the Administration, then it is the slanderers and not the slander- 
ed 'who are responsible for so calamitous an alienation. I charged 
you with slandering the Administration. The sole difference be- 
tween Democrats, Republicans and Abolitionists at this point 
"where you slander it, is that whilst all three agree that the one 
jssue is the salvation of the Constitution and the Union, the De- 
mocrats are not willing to have them saved at the necessary sa- 
crifice of slavery; the Republicans are; and the Abolitionists re- 
joice in the necessity. 

To return for a moment to your queer theory. What will not 
a man do when he is in straits ? You would not consent to the 
disgrace and ruin of your pro-slavery party, as you w r ould do if 
you consented to have slavery held responsible for the accursed 
Rebellion. Hence your queer theory, that has not one fact nor one 
semblance of a fact to sustain it. The theory which is made from 
facts is valuable. But the theory to which facts are made is worth- 
less. Emphatically worthless is yours, since you have not so much 
as taken the pains to coin facts, and have substituted for the coin- 
age simple assertion ! 

Slavery not the cause of the Rebellion ! Then why is it that, 
whilst every Free State came out instantly in battle array against 
the Rebellion, eleven of the Slave States embarked in it. and three, 
if not indeed all four, of the others gave only too abundant signs 
that they also would embark in it but for their fear of Federal 
troops? Slavery not the cause of the Rebellion ! Then why is it 
that the rebels say it is? — and why is it that the}' insult the Civil- 
ization of the age by making slavery the boasted corner-stone of 
their new nation? — and by making the first of all the objects of 
their diabolical movement the protecting, spreading, and eternizing 
of slavery ? 

I do not murmur at the Providence, which has brought you 
again into high political power. On the contrary, I submissively 
accept it as a part of the penalty of the American people for their 
oppressions of the poor. Your election, instead of the election of 
the brave and noble man who rejoices in the deliverance of the 
slave and who with his three sons is in the army of his country 



12 GERKIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

instead of being in the counsels of its foes, is, notwithstanding it 
is so frightfully calamitous, to be endured as one of our merited 
inflictions. Every nation prepares its own cup. We have made 
ours very bitter. Nevertheless we must drink it. As a part of 
the punishment for our unsurpassed crimes against humanity we 
may have to witness the failure of all endeavors to save our be- 
loved country, and may have to pass through the humiliation of 
recognizing the Southern Confederacy. But God be praised that 
over against all this deep and unutterable sorrow will be the deep 
and unutterable joy that the slave is free ! In spite of the in- 
fluence of your Party to the contrary and of your individual and 
amazing determination to the contrary, the slave will go free. 
Yes, though the guilty nation, with whose continued existence 
stands connected tbe highest object of your ambition, may be 
left to perish, the innocent slave nevertheless shall surely go free. 
Do you wonder at the positiveness with which I express myself 
at this point ? I answer that this being, high above all human 
purposes and issues in it, a war of God against slavery, pro-slave- 
ry men are but fools in it, and only abolitionists competent to 
advise in it, and foresee its grand results. 

Faithful were the abolitionists, all through a quarter of a cen- 
tury, to warn their countrymen of this day of blood. But pro- 
slavery politicians requited them with scorn. And so frenzied 
are such politicians now, as to purpose to save the country by 
crushing the abolitionists. This, however, is but as every impeni- 
tently wicked people have dealt with their faithful prophets. 

The counsels of the abolitionists — of the men who have made 
slavery their life-long study — can alone, under God, save our 
appallingly imperiled nation. Every step taken by her in accord- 
ance with these counsels is a step in the way of her salvation ; 
and her every step to the contrary is in the way to her destruc- 
tion. 

Youi* former and your present friend, 

Gerrit Smith. 



STAND BY THE GOVERNMENT. 

SPEECH m ALBANY, FEBRUARY 27, 1863. 



After offering the following Resolution : 

" Whereas, the one work of the nation is to crush the Rebel- 
lion ; and whereas it can be accomplished through the Govern- 
ment only : Therefore resolved, that Democrats, Republicans, and 
Abolitionists — men of all parties and men of no parties — should 
stand by the Government, and sympathize w T ith it tinder its em- 
barrassments, and bear its burdens, and be grateful for its fidelity, 
and, whilst quick to commend its wise measures, should never 
criticise its mistakes but in the spirit of patriotism instead of 
party, and but to make the Government stronger instead of weak- 
er, and the enemy weaker instead of stronger." 

Mr. Smith proceeded to say : 

I am not rightly represented in all respects. For instance, 
because I am an old and zealous Temperance man, it is assumed 
that I am for having Government take the Cause of Temperance 
under its wing. Whereas the theory, which I have spent so much 
time during the last twenty years in elucidating and commending, 
is that Government has nothing to do with Churches nor even 
with Schools, with religious institutions nor even with moral re- 
forms ; and that its only legitimate province is the narrow one of 
protecting the persons and property of its subjects. Hence when 
I would have Government shut up a dram-shop, it is not because I 
would have it enact a sumptuary law or care in the least for the 
cause of Temperance ; but it is solely because a portion of the 
men, who frequent that dram-shop, are wont to get crazed in it, 
and to go forth from it to perpetrate crimes against person and 
property. It is because that manufactory of madmen sends out 
one man to fire a dwelling, and another to murder a wife, and 
others to other deeds of mischief or horror. Then again because 
I am an old and radical Abolitionist, it is taken for granted that 
I would have our struggle to put down the Rebellion perverted 



14 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

into a crusade against Slavery. Whereas ever since the Rebel- 
lion broke out, I have been entreating my countrymen not to fall 
away to any side issues, but to consecrate themselves " arm and 
soul " to the one work of putting down the Rebellion. Unceas- 
ingly have I summoned them to stand shoulder to shoulder in this 
work, notwithstanding their differences as Democrats, Republi- 
cans, and Abolitionists. To this end was my printed Letter in 1861 
to Edwin Croswell. To this end have been many of my writings 
and speeches. With this struggle to put down the Rebellion I 
have from first to last been unconditionally identified. The Presi- 
dent's blocking up of Fremont's and Hunter's Abolition way did 
not in tJie least diminish my devotion to the one absorbing pur- 
pose of putting down the Rebellion ; and his Proclamation of 
Freedom could not increase it. Whether the Government in its 
changeful measures, was now for slavery or now against it, I kept 
steadily on in my zeal and labor for the overthrow of the Re- 
bellion. 

Excuse the egotism of these introductory remarks. I dislike 
egotism, w r hether it be in myself or in others. But I felt that I 
must make them in order to get your unprejudiced and open ears. 
I felt that you would not respect what I have to say to you, unless 
I should first disabuse you of your false impressions regarding my 
attitude toward the Rebellion. 

The way is now open for me to mention some of our duties at 
this crisis. 

1st. Tlie Rebellion must be put doicn. 

2d. All hands must help put it doicn. 

The Republicans, Democrats, and Abolitionists must all help, 
be it at whatever risk to their respective parties. Indeed, so far 
as the Rebellion is concerned, they must all give up their parties, 
and become one party. Outside of this one party they may still 
maintain old party names and old party aims. But into this new 
and sacred party they must bring no party interests, no party 
jealousies, no party divisions. In this party all must be harmony ; 
and its members must know each other only as Americans. 

I add that whilst on the one hand the Abolitionists must help 
put down the Rebellion not merely because it is a Pro-Slavery 
one — (foi*, Slavery out of the question, they should be equally 
prompt to put it down) — on the other hand the Anti- Abolitionists 
must not withhold their help because it is a Pro-Slavery Rebel- 
lion. The Democrats must be as prompt to assist in putting 
down this Rebellion as they would be were it an Anti-Slavery 
one. They know that they would lose very little time in arraying 
(and that too most vindictively) all their might against a New- 
England Anti-Slavery Rebellion. They, who are now Peace De- 
mocrats, would then be War Democrats ; and such of them, as 
are now the most tender to rebels, would then be the least patient 
with rebels. 

I said that the Abolitionists must help put down the Rebellion. 
If any of them would not have it put down unless Slavery be put 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 15 

down with it or before it, they are wrong. The Rebellion is, 
aside from all questions of Slavery, an enormous evil; and, as 
such, all arc bound to help suppress it, unconditionally and un- 
calculatingly. Moreover, in the light of a sound philosophy there 
is no right thing that can be damaged by ending an evil ; and 
hence if the undertaking to abolish slavery be a right thing noth- , 
ing is to he feared for it from the suppression of the Rebellion. 

I called the existing Rebellion a Pro-Slavery one. I do not 
forget that there are persons Avho find it convenient to deny 
it that character. The Southern statesmen, one of whom calls 
Slavery the corner-stone of their new nation, do not thank these 
persons for this denial. The Southern clergymen will not thank 
them for it. They entirely concur with the Southern statesmen 
at this point. Their Bishops, in their recent Pastoral Letter, are 
not .ashamed to avow that the Rebel States " are about to plant 
their national life" on Slavery. 

3d. The Northern people should all admit — nay, to use a more 
positive and proper word — they shoidd all declare, that the Rebel- 
lion is entirely groundless-and e.rn'edinyly wicked. 

None among us should any longer say that the Abolitionists 
provoked the Rebellion. The saying of this goes if not to justify, 
nevertheless to excuse, the Rebellion ; and it goes to reduce the 
hatred and horror of it, and also the strength of the purpose and 
endeavors to subdue it. I readily admit, that the Abolitionists did 
by their much talking and writing against Slavery greatly annoy 
the slaveholders. But surely this talking and writing, whether 
right or wrong, furnished no excuse for Rebellion. Free discus- 
sion is to be tolerated. If it. is not, then the Missionaries, which 
our Churches have sent all over the heathen world to discuss 
idolatries and other forms of error, should be recalled ; and then, 
indeed, the progress of mental and moral improvement, the earth 
over, should be arrested. Republicans and Abolitionists ! will 
not you tolerate free discussion ? I need not ask the Democrats 
whether they will. For, in the turn of things, they have become 
the champions of free speech. They, before whose frequent mobs 
against free speech I had twenty or thirty years ago to retreat 
and hide, have now become the loudest-mouthed defenders of free 
speech. 

But you will perhaps say that the Abolitionists went beyond 
free discussion, and pushed up some of the Northern Legislatures 
to unconstitutional legislation against Slavery. But even if it was 
unconstitutional, it certainly gave no just occasion for Rebellion. 
If nothing else forbade Rebellion, it was forbidden by the fact 
that there was the Supreme Court of the United States to pass 
upon the constitutionality of the legislation and to make a de- 
cision that all would abide by. Right here, let me run a contrast 
between the North and the South for the purpose of taking all 
possible cavil and complaint at this point out of the mouth of the 
South. The whole South wrote or talked for Slavery. But it 
was only a small portion of the North which wrote or talked 



16 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

against it. Most of the Northern people either apologized for it, 
or absolutely defended it. Again, Southern men came North, and 
advocated Slavery in the broadest and most offensive terms. 
Nevertheless these Southern visitors were treated courteously and 
kindly. But when Northern men went South, they were, if how- 
ever slightly s\xspected of being Abolitionists, insulted, frequent- 
ly tarred and feathered, and not unfrequently murdered. And 
again whilst the North was entirely willing to have the question 
of the constitutionality of her Anti-Slavery legislation go to the 
Supreme Court, the South angrily and stubbornly refused to let 
her Pro-Slavery legislation undergo this trial. Such was the re- 
fusal of Charleston and New-Orleans, when Massachusetts sent 
Commissioners to those cities; and the Commissioners had in- 
stantly to turn homeward in order to avoid violence and death. 
And now, to continue the contrast, whilst the North, though 
under the provocation of these deep wrongs, did not rebel, nor 
even remonstrate, nor scarcely murmur ; the South, though suffer- 
ing no wrong nor semblance of wrong, has rebelled, ami armed 
herself against the nation. Nevertheless, so debauched and blinded 
by Slavery had the North become, that, even in the face of this 
contrast, there are thousands amongst us who say and scores of 
thousands who believe, that the North and not the South is the 
aggressor — that the North is the guily injurer, and the South the 
injured and the innocent ! 

" judgment ! thou art fled to brutish beasts, 
Aud men have lost their reason !" 

ith. The Rebellion must be put down unconditionally. 

Government must make no conditions, and accept none. Stern, 
uncompromising, unrelenting must be its policy until the Rebel- 
lion is suppressed. After that, the freer the play of a merciful 
and fraternal spirit the more will my heart rejoice. Nor must any 
Republicans propose a Swiss mediator or any other mediator. 
Not must any Democrats recommend the disposing of the Rebel- 
lion by a Convention or popular Assembly to be held in Nash- 
ville, Louisville, or anywhere else. It is for Government, and 
Government only, to dispose of it. The people must not override 
their own Government. That is the most effectual way to dis- 
parage and destroy it. Our Government could never more be 
good for any thing after the people had taken the Rebellion out 
of its hands. Henceforth it would be a derision both at home and 
abroad ; — as contemptible, and probably as transient also, as a 
Mexican Government. Were a mob raging in your streets, 
would you leave it to the city of Troy to say what should be 
done with it ? Certainly not. Nor would you, instead of en- 
couraging and strengthening your city government to disperse 
it, virtually get up another mob. This, however, you would do, 
should you, contemptuously thrusting aside your city govern- 
ment, summon the people to deal with the mob. Yes, in that 
case your people would be mobbing their own Government most 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 17 

* 

emphatically. Xow, this Rebellion is but a mob — a mob on 

an extended scale ; and it is as exclusively the work of the Federal 

Government to put it down, as it is of a city government to put 
down a street mob; or of a father to put down the child who re- 
volts against his authority. 

I need not add that our Government will not tolerate Inter- 
vention, but will regard it as War; — and, this too, whether the 
Intervention be on the part of one nation or many nations; under 
the plea of commerce or humanity. 

5th. The JRebellion must be put down, let the consequences be tohat 
they may to the Constitution, tlie Union, or even to the country. 

I have not said this to startle you, but to reconcile you to it. 
The nation must be reconciled to it, or perish: Suppose the re- 
volting child I referred to should say: Father! you had better 
not try to put me down. It might be the breaking up and ruin of 
the family." How prompt and proper would be the father's 
indignant answer : " Family or no family, you young rascal, you 
shall be put down." And down he'd put him, wholly irrespective 
of the bearing of the transaction upon the family. Nay, he 
would, as he ought to, entirely forget his family in his one 
absorbing purpose of subduing the rebel. Nevertheless in this 
forgetting of his family, he would best serve and most honor it. 

Now, I hold that in just the spirit of this wronged and aroused 
father should the American people and American Government feel 
and act. Thus, more than any other wise, would America set an 
example full of glory to herself and of benefit to mankind. But 
if from her lack of an immovable resolution to exhaust herself, if 
need be, in conquering the diabolical Rebellion, it shall finally re- 
main unconquered ; then will America bring greater disgrace to 
herself and greater detriment to mankind than any other nation 
ever did. The lustre, which innumerable victories have shed 
upon the arms and name of England is infinitely less than would 
be that of her expending her last strength in crushing an utterly 
unprovoked and wicked revolt of a part of her counties. And 
that high-spirited nation would expend it rather than give up her 
Government and her boundaries. Shame to you, English rulers, 
that you are not willing to have this nation also maintain Govern-' 
ment and boundaries at whatever expense or hazard! All honor 
to you English people, that you are coming out so bravely and so 
nohly against your rulers and for us at this point, which is so vital 
not only to us but to all mankind! And you do this too in the 
face of the arguments, that the giving up of our resistance to the 
Rebellion would give bread to your hungry ones. God bless these 
hungry ones for their patience and their sympathy with us, and 
for affording another shining instance that men of integrity >k do 
not live by bread alone." The English masses, who have to con- 
front aristocracy, can well sympathize with our brave armies, who 
have gone forth to battle with an aristocracy not less but more 
overbearing, and but little if any less mighty. 

I add that the present is no time to talk, and get up issues and 
2 



18 GERRIT SMITH ON" THE REBELLION. 

multiply divisions, about the Constitution, the Union and the 
country. One person may wish to have the Constitution altered, 
and another may not. For one I do not, and never did, wish any 
alteration in it. No Democratic stickler for the Constitution as 
it is, be he living or dead, has ever spoken or written as much as I 
have for the Constitution as it is. Two years ago the Democratic 
Party and no small portion of the Republican Party were ready 
for Pro-Slavery changes of the Constitution. I opposed them ; but 
I did not ask for Anti-Slavery changes. I was entirely content with 
the Constitution just as the Fathers gave it to us. Again whilst one 
person may wish the Union modified, another, like myself, may be 
satisfied with its present terms. And again, whilst one person 
may wish to have the country no larger, another may go as far as 
I did in Congress, and wish to have it include Cuba and all Mexico. 
Oh ! no, the pi'esent is no time to agitate, or even to mention those 
questions. There is time now for nothing else than for all of us 
to band ourselves together, and to determine in the depths of 
our soul, that the Rebellion shall go down, even though Constitu- 
tion and Union and country go down with it. But some of you 
will tell me, that you wish to save the Constitution, the Union and 
the country. So do I wish to save them. There is, however, 
only one way to save them ; and that way is to forget them — to 
forget them in the one engrossing purpose to crush the Rebellion. 

Now does all this, which I have just been saying, seem extrav- 
agant ? Nevertheless it is only in the spirit of all this that the 
Rebellion can be overcome. It is this out-of-season talk for the 
Constitution and the Union all the way through the war, that 
has so confused the nation, and prevented the concentration of its 
interest and energies at the point which claims all its interest and 
energies ; and that has done more than any and all things else to 
demoralize, debase, and destroy the nation. If the Democrats, 
Republicans, and Abolitionists would come into a mutual stipula- 
tion not to speak for ninety days of the Constitution, the Union 
or Slavery, there would within that time grow up such an earn- 
estness and unanimity in the work of annihilating the Rebellion, 
that it would be annihilated. 

"T7ie Constitution as it is and the Union as it teas" — this, all 
the way through the War, has been the great motto, not of the 
Democrats only but of most of the Republicans also. I do not 
say that it was a bad motto with which to face the discontents, 
murmurs, and threats that preceded the War. I do not say that 
it was unwise in Mr. Lincoln and our statesmen generally to con- 
tinue to recognize it, in those early stages of the war, which near- 
ly all of us hoped would not result in actual and proper war. 
But neither consistency nor any other consideration required them 
to recognize it any longer. Its effect any longer could be but to 
deceive and destroy. And yet, even now, when the strife has 
taken on the dimensions of the widest war and the character of 
the most horrid war, this motto is still current. Alas ! what mis- 
conceptions of the hour have they who, in this life-and-death- 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 19 

struggle, would inspire us with nny paramount anxiety, or indeed 
with any anxiety, for the Constitution and the Union ! And, alas ! 
how unfitted for a part in this struggle arc all they who yield 
themselves up to this untimely and comparatively low inspiration ! 
I say not that it will he improper to revive this motto after the 
rebels are conquered. But I do say that until then it should be 
buried and forgotten. For until then we have nothing to think 
of but the Rebellion, and nothing to do but to put it down. 

A mobocratic spirit against the present charter and present 
boundaries of a city is beginning to show itself. The loyal citi- 
zens do well to meet this spirit with a motto, and to cry : " The 
charter and the boundaries/" But would not such a motto be 
madness after the mobocrats had already applied the torch and . 
were already at work to reduce the city to ashes ? It would be — 
and as emphatic madness is this prating about the Constitution 
and the Union in this fearful hour, when the mightiest Rebellion 
the world ever saw has raised the question — not what will become 
of a Paper and of politics, but what will become of our wives 
and children. "Death to the mobocrats /" could be the only suit- 
able motto in the one case, as "Death to the rebels/" is the only 
suitable one in the other. 

Oh ! no, this is not, as it is still claimed to be by the designing 
and the deluded, " a War to maintain the Constitution and re- 
store the Union." In its beginning it may have been proper to 
call that the issue. But it is no longer so, now that the Kebellion 
has reached its present proportions, and is so full of peril to the 
very life of the nation. 

In this connection I would rebuke the frequent question — 
whether we mean to subjugate the Southern States. Until the 
Rebellion is subdued we mean to do nothing but subdue it. Af- 
ter that will be soon enough to decide what to do after that. 
To decide it now would be but to embarrass us, and to get up an- 
other issue on which to divide us. For the present we are to see 
to it, that the South do not subjugate us. 

6th. This clamor for carrying on the War in only a Constitu- 
tional way should cease — for it springs neither from good sense 
nor from an enlightened and enlarged patriotism, and it is 
fraught icith peril if not indeed with ruin to our cause. ' 

It is not true that Ave are bound to carry on the war Constitu- 
tionally at all hazards. I know that the rebels who have kicked 
aside the Constitution say that we are. This was the burden of 
Breckinridge's speeches in the Senate just before he left it to join 
the rebel army. But to say that we are to receive the advice of 
the rebels with caution, is not to treat them discourteously or un- 
gratefully. Their professed regard for the Constitution and for 
our welfare through an incessantly scrupulous and minute observ- 
ance of it is certainly not above reasonable suspicion. 

I admit that I see no necessity for violating the Constitution in 
carrying on the War. But if I did I Avould not hesitate to have 
it violated. I totally deny that this nation or any other nation is 



20 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

to regard itself as tied up to a Paper in the prosecution of war. 
Never before was there a nation so insane as to maintain for one 
moment the idea that, in a life-and-death-struggle, it was bound at 
whatever risk to take those steps and those only which had been 
marked out for it in a time of peace and safety. What the salva- 
tion of the nation calls for is to be done, whether the Constitu- 
tion does or does not provide for it. The person who says other- 
wise, would be like to evince more concern to save the hat than 
the head of the drowning man. "All that a man hath will he 
give for his life" — and all that a nation hath, Constitution in- 
cluded, should she be willing to give for her life. The country is 
more than the Constitution. Not for the sake of the Constitution 
may the country be hazarded — but for the sake of the country 
the Constitution may be sacrified. And I repeat that the putting 
down of the rebels is more than both Constitution and country. 

There is, my hearers, a better inheritance than a Constitution 
or even than a country, which we can leave to our successors. 
This better inheritance is the glorious and immortal fact, that we 
made more account of putting down an internal Rebellion than 
we did of preserving our treasure or our life, our Constitution or 
our country. To resist high-handed and bloody crime at what- 
ever hazard or expense to ourselves, and to be less concerned to 
escape from death than from deep and enduring disgrace — surely 
this will be more precious in the esteem of our children than any 
thing we could have saved for them by failing of this fidelity'and 
bravery, and going down to the low grounds of calculation and 
compromise. To be willing to fling away our all in withstanding 
the assatilts of a demonized gang on the sacred edifice of free gov- 
ernment — this is to make ourselves the greatest blessing to those 
who shall come after us ; and this is to do more toward carrying 
upward and onward the human family than could be done by 
saving a thousand countries in which this sublime spirit of self- 
sacrifice is not found. 

I said that I see no necessity for violating the Constitution in 
carrying on war. The paper withholds no needed power. It 
provides that Congress may declare war and enact all laws " ne- 
cessary and proper " to give effect to the declaration. Congress 
is, of course, the sole judge as to what laws are " necessary and 
proper." Surely here is power enough. 

We must all stand by the Government, and do all we can to 
make strong its heart and hands. Ours is an intelligent Govern- 
ment, and it is honestly intent in putting down the Rebellion. 
Every government falls into mistakes. Doubtless ours has fallen 
into some. But the Democrats complain too unqualifiedly and 
sweepingly of it. I admit that they are entirely right in de- 
nouncing the unnecessary seizure and imprisonment of citizens. 
Nevertheless there are instances of their necessary seizure and 
imprisonment ; and moreover there are instances (I confess com- 
paratively few) where there is not opportunity for the examina- 
tion of the accused either previous to or immediately after his 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION". 21 

arrest. But, Democrats, if you will bear in mind that this power 
to seize and imprison citizens is, although a very necessary one, a 
very odious one, you will see that Government is under a strong 
motive to exercise it sparingly, and only for the safety of the 
country. I am not a member of the Republican Party. Never- 
theless I can trust our Republican Government a1 this point. I 
would, Democrats, that you also might be willing to trust it. 
Enlighten it, and remonstrate with it, as there may be occasion. 
But do not array yourselves against it. For the dear country's sake, 
be on its side — its friend and not its foe. 

Let me speak of an error, which not Democrats only but s Re- 
publicans also are liable to fall into. Now a Fremont, now a 
Hunter, now a Fitz-John Porter, and now a McClellan comes 
under the censure of the Government. Perhaps in every instance 
the censure is unjust. But, Democrats and Republicans, if there 
be an instance in which you are entirely sure it is unjust, never- 
theless do not add to the embarrassments of the Government and 
the perils of the country by making it an occasion for compliment- 
ing and glorifying the censured one. In this wise you will gather 
a party around him, and it will not fail to be a party against the 
Government. But the Government, so long as it has the armed 
South for a party against it, can not afford to encounter any other 
party. I do not know but the Government fell into mistakes in 
regard to all these Generals. But I do know that whether it did 
or did not, the present is not the time to punish the mistakes of 
the Government. As much as we can now do is to punish the 
crimes of the rebels. Let the friends of the Fremonts and Mc- 
Clellans be patient. Justice will be done to their favorites; and 
the less hurriedly the more perfectly. 

I pass to the wrong which those Abolitionists commit, who con- 
demn the President for not proclaiming freedom to all the slaves, 
and also to the wrong which those Democrats commit, who con- 
demn him for proclaiming it to any. Now the truth on the one 
hand is, that the President has no right to abolish Slavery except as 
Commander-in-Chief, and no right even in that capacity to abolish 
it any further or faster than the military necessities of the country 
call for. The truth on the other hand is, that he has the right to 
abolish any and all Slavery the abolition of which is called for by 
such necessities. In his much criticised, much condemned, and 
much ridiculed Letter to Horace -Greeley the President laid down 
the true doctrine in this case. If it would help us in the War to 
call to our side the slaves of South-Carolina, then the President 
should call them. If it would not help us to call those of North- 
Carolina, those he should not call. In nothing of all this has he 
aught to do with the morality of Slavery. I grant that if the 
slaves will not come, it is useless to call them ; and I am aware 
that it is very frequently and confidently asserted that their love 
of their masters and mistresses is too great to permit them to 
come. If, however, they will come, then by all means they should 
be called — and this too even if they should, as it is said they 



22 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION". 

would, prove too lazy to work where there are no whips to work 
under ; and even if they should, as it is said they would, prove 
too cowardly to fight. For left where they are their toil sustains 
the Rebellion. 

I claim not to know whether the slaves will come to our stand- 
ard — nor whether, if they should come, they will either work or 
fight. But I do claim that, inasmuch as there is a chance, be it 
however small, that they will come, and a chance, be it however 
small, that they will work, and a chance, be it ho w ever small, that 
they will fight, the President's Proclamation of Freedom is justi- 
fied. For what, if it shall turn out that the slaves are able to 
tear themselves away from their dear masters and mistresses ! 
What an immense advantage to our cause will that be ; and even 
though they shall prove .unable or unwilling to render us any serv- 
ice after coming to us ! And then if it shall turn out that they 
are willing to work on our side, and to work as faithfully as did 
that comparative handful of escaped and deserted slaves who, 
instead of being, as was all along alleged, a charge upon our na- 
tional treasury, put into it, over and above wages and expenses, 
between five and six hundred thousand dollars — then will this 
immense advantage be doubled. And then a still greater advan- 
tage to our cause if they shall be willing to fight for it, and our 
officers and soldiers shall be so earnestly patriotic as to let them 
fight for it. For I know not why, if they shall be willing to fight 
for us, they shall not fight with as signal bravery and effective- 
ness as did the negroes in both of our wars with Great Britain. 
^Whether our officers and soldiers will be so much in earnest to 
put clown the Rebellion as to let the despised negroes help them 
put it down, remains to be seen. If entirely in earnest, they would 
welcome the aid not only of negroes and Indians, but of even the 
devil himself. 

I repeat that I know not whether the slaves will come to us, or 
whether if they do they will work or fight. They are called the 
most patient and forgiving of all the races. They will certainly 
prove that they are, if they can forget that monstrous and meanest 
crime of letting the thousands, who toiled on the Vicksburgh cut- 
off, fall again into the hands of the vindictive slaveholders ; and 
if they can also forget the innumerable instances in which slaves 
coming to our lines, some with very valuable news of the designs 
and movements of the enemy, and all with hearts and hands to 
help us, have with satanic malignity been returned to the fate 
from which they had fled ; and if, in a word, they can forget our 
persistent ridicule, loathing and murderous hate of a people, who 
have done not one wrong in return for the mountains of wrong 
under which we have buried them. It is true that even such a 
people may at last be goaded to revengeful and bloody insurrec- 
tions. Not, however, if they can have a way of escape from their 
oppressors. The President's Proclamation is the safety-valve. 
One of my chief reasons for welcoming it was that it would pro- 
bably prevent servile insurrections. 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 23 

I said that the Proclamation is to be justified in the light of 
even the least favorable expectations from it. But should we 
realize from it all this, which I have been speaking of as possible) 
then should we all rejoice in it. Should we hear to-night that a 
Southern black regiment has overcome a rebel white one, would 
we not all swing our hats ? Would not even the Democrats ? It 
would indeed put to shame some of their oftenest repeated and 
most confident predictions, and it would take from their harp its 
most available string. But, Democrats, you would be too pa- 
triotic and magnanimous to mind that — wouldn't you? 

I spoke of the blacks coming to our side. Let me not be mis- 
understood. The abolition of Slavery will not send the Southern 
blacks to the North, but it will send the Northern blacks to the 
South. A genial climate, and, still more, masses of their race will 
attract them thither. They who seek to make the white laborer 
of the North jealous of abolition, do so either very ignorantly or 
very disingenuously. 

And there is still another complaint which I have to make. It 
is the injustice and insult to the President of which they are 
guilty, who charge him with turning the war into an abolition 
war. He solemnly declares that his sole end is to put down the 
Rebellion ; and that whatever he does with Slavery is done but inci- 
dentally, and but to that sole end. What, if the President, having 
taken it into his head that one of the most effective things which 
could be done toward prostrating the Rebellion is to free the cot- 
ton from the tenacious grasp of the Confederate Government, 
should be multiplying endeavors to that end ? Would it be fair 
to charge him with perverting the war into a war to free the cot- 
ton ? I deliberately affirm that it would be quite as fair as to charge 
him with perverting it into a war to free the slave. Let us 
all be just to the President. To be unjust to him is not only to 
wrong him, but to wrong and perhaps ruin the country. Demo- 
crats ! there are some who accuse you of opposing the President's 
Proclamation, because you would pervert the war into a war for 
Slavery. Are you not indignant at the accusation? Surely, you 
should be. For nothing in all the history of man could be more 
revolting than such a perversion of a just war, and such a betrayal 
of a righteous cause. Great is the wickedness of a slaveholding 
people who make war for Slavery. But the wanton and unmiti- 
gated wickedness of a non-slaveholding people, who should join 
them, is infinitely greater. 

I must bring my speech to a close. Do you wonder that I, so 
old and so radical an Abolitionist, have expressed in it no concern 
about Slavery ? I could not express what I did not feel. Since 
the bombarding of Sumter I have felt no concern about Slavery — 
for I could not doubt that it was the effectual bombarding of 
Slavery. As the war has advanced I have been increasingly con- 
fident that the people would never consent to reestablish the 
cause of all this blood and horror and desolation. As I have seen 
the plowshare of war pass through Slavery, I have felt more and 



24 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

more that the time for the abomination to pass away had come. 
And now have we signs that the very earthquakes of war will soon 
be rending this mountain of oppression, and tossing its parts 
hither and thither beyond all possibility of restoration. 

Moreover, civilization is everywhere casting off Slavery ; and 
there is reason to hope that even the South will become so far 
civilized by this war as no longer to desire Slavery. It is indeed, 
sad to have to number war amongst the civilizing agents. Never- 
theless so it is, that whilst the nations are on their present low 
plane — a plane in the case of some of them not above the barbar- 
ism of slaveholding — it is hardly extravagant to say of them that, 
" without shedding of blood there is no " civilization. War is 
emphatically the worst of all remedies. But the nations are still 
too low and barbarous to try only the better ones. 

Yes, the slave is soon to go free. Heaven's time for setting him 
free is at hand ; and earth and hell can not prevail against heaven. 
He goes free by the shedding of blood. But it is the blood of his 
common oppressors North and South, instead of his own. Won- 
drous manifestations of the Divine hand ! Wondrous retribu- 
tions of the Divine justice ! 

But though I am sure that the innocent slave shall go free, I am 
not sure that the guilty nation shall live. God alone knows what 
penalty will be adequate to its enormous, continued, and unrcpent- 
ed of crimes against his poor. Perhaps it is to be destroyed, and 
to be a warning, loud and long, against oppression. Neverthe- 
less, though we are to be submissive to whatever may be in store 
for her, we are to labor zealously, wisely, and incessantly for her 
salvation. 

My hearers, we will all stand by the Government — will Ave not ? 
Although some of us are Democrats and some Republicans and 
some Abolitionists, we will nevertheless lock hands as Americans — ■ 
will we not? We will all of us, notwithstanding our party 
divisions and party interests, generously and patriotically band 
ourselves together to crush this causeless and accursed Rebellion — 
will we not ? Would that we might this night feel more deeply 
than ever that it is not by the rebels that we can be conquered, 
but only by ourselves. Nothing is truer than that the life of the 
Rebellion is in disunion at the North. Nothing is truer than that 
it would find its death in union at the North. 

Ere taking my seat, let me remind you of our duty to stand by 
our Army — by the brave men who have gone out from among 
us to suffer every hardship and to face every peril in the high and. 
holy work of suppressing the most nefarious of all conspiracies. 
But the way to stand by them is to stand by the Government they 
serve. To desert the Government is to desert them. Our soldiers 
bid us stand by the Government. They are afflicted that so many 
of us do not. They are indignant at the divisions by which Ave 
encourage the foe, and make him abler to drive back and slaughter 
our friends. Such hcartlessness toward themselves as Avell as to- 
Avard the country is very unlike that reward of sympathy, grati- 



GERR1T SMITn ON THE REBELLION. 25 

tude, and lovo on which they counted when they went forth to 
fight her battles. Our slain soldiers, could they speak, would bid 
us stand by the Government. Our tens of thousands of broken 
families weeping over those who went to the army never more to 
return from it, bid us stand by the Government. The enlightened 
friends of freedom and righteousness the earth over bid us stand 
by the Government. And, loud above all, comes down the voice 
out of heaven : " Stand by the Government! Stand by the Gov- 
ernment !" 



DENYING SUFFRAGE EVEN TO SOLDIERS! 



Tell the drunkard or the debauchee that he is a ruined man, 
and he will stare upon you with astonishment and frown upon you 
with indignation. So is it with this nation. She is annoyed and 
angry at the charge of being ruined. Nevertheless she has been 
ruined for more than forty years. From the sad hour when 
Slavery triumphed over Freedom in the Missouri Compromise, 
down to the present no sadder hour she has never ceased to be a 
ruined nation. 

Our nation saw a fierce and mighty Rebellion spring up within 
her borders and ripen into the organization of an independent gov- 
ernment. She saw here and there her little peace army, or rather 
armed police, betrayed into its hands; and here and there the 
rebels plundering her treasuries. She saw them so bold as to fire 
at her ships, and seize her forts, and build up fortifications over 
against her own. Nevertheless (thing unheard of in the history 
of nations !) she did not move. Why did she not ? Simply be- 
cause she could not. Why could she not ? Simply because she 
was ruined. 

It is true that the news of the taking of Sumter proved that the 
nation was not entirely dead. This electric shock detected some 
lingering remains of patriotism. But that President Lincoln, 
though loyal and loving the right, Avas nevertheless incompetent 
to avail himself of the occasion and to strike effectively for her 
salvation, was among the painful proofs that the nation was still 
ruined. In common with the nation, he was drugged and de- 
bauched by Slavery. How then could he suddenly rise up in 
earnest resistance to the Rebellion it had prompted ? Oh ! could 
he have then believed that the military necessities of the country 
would justify his summoning to his standard every slave in the 
land, how soon would the Rebellion have been put down ! Or 
even had he gone no farther than to summon to it, at that nick of 
time, the slaves of the revolted States. Are we told that the peo- 
ple were not yet prepared for so strong a measure? They were: 
aud never since so well. Moreover, the measure itself would have 
completed the preparation — would have supplied any possible lack 
in it. Nothing is so mighty to convert men to the right as bravery 
for the right. The fearless and unhesitating leader is the one they 
love to follow. Had the tide in our natiou's affairs been taken at 
the Sumter flood ifc would have led her " on to fortune." But our 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 27 

leader lacked the courage and decision to take it. Through his 
timidity and indecision it was left to subside, with but little profit 
having come of it. And alas, how has her voyage since been 
" bound in shalloAvs and in miseries !" The enthusiasm kindled 
by the outrageous and infamous assault on Sumter was suffered to 
pass away. Very soon the people sank down into a willingness to 
hear demagogues and traitors prate about the Constitution. 'In 
none but a ruined nation can the people, at the very time when the 
life of their nation is struck at, give car to such prating. 

Does this late-in-the-day call upon the blacks to enroll themselves 
in our army prove that our nation is not ruined ? Far from it — 
especially so, since the Government has not the manliness to 
promise to see to it that captured blacks shall, instead of being 
murdered or sold into Slavery as the rebels threaten, be treated as 
jn-isoners of war. 

I referred to this prating about the Constitution. It continues 
unabated to this day. Anxiety lest we may lose, not the Country, 
but the Constitution, is no less irrational and is infinitely more 
ruinous than would be anxiety to save, not the man from drown- 
ing, but his hat from going clown stream. 

I, who have never spoken or written one word against the Consti- 
tution, and who have spoken and written more words for it than 
did ever any Pro-Slavery man living or dead, can afford to say 
that this prating for it has made " Constitution" the most offensive 
of all the sounds that strike upon my ear. " Slavery" itself is to 
me a less disturbing word than this one under cover of which 
Slavery is hypocritically served. 

I spoke of the continuance of this prating. In reply to every 
proposition for a more vigorous prosecution of the war, we are 
still met with the cry: "The Constitution ! The Constitution ! !" 
And even now, when Ave would help on the Avar by alloAving the 
soldiers of the State of NeAv-York to vote at her elections, we are 
met by this same cry. Surely, surely, Ave have here another proof 
that our nation is ruined. 

How commanding are the reasons for allowing them to A'ote ! 
~No other class of men haA~e so emphatic a right to vote for the 
nailers of their country as these, Avho are periling their lives for 
her and doing more than any and all other classes to saA'e her. There 
is no other class of men Avhose rights avc should hold so sacred. 
Then to convince them that we lore them and stand by them, we 
should hasten to recognize all their rights and to facilitate their 
exercise. Moreover, that they may be inspired to do their utmost 
for their country they must see that they are regarded, not as her 
armed defenders only, but as still her citizens — and her citizens not 
robbed of, but protected in, their rights by their felloAV-citizens 
whom they have left at home. A European army is for the most 
part made up of the dregs of the population — of men without 
acknowledged political rights and without character. Very dif- 
ferent is our army. It is composed of those, Avho, besides being 
our superiors in patriotism and courage, are our equals in rights, 



28 GEERIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

intelligence, and character. Let this be borne in mind by all who 
would disfranchise them. I add that there is no other class of 
men, whom we should feel ourselves so strongly bound to honor 
and to gratify in every possible way as our noble and beloved 
soldiers. Another argument for allowing the soldiers to vote is, 
that here one of them who is a Democrat and there one of them 
who is a Republican will, under some excuse or other, go home 
to play his part in deciding a hotly contested and doubtful elec- 
tion. This, besides damaging the efficiency of the army, furnishes 
just ground of complaint, now to one of the parties and now to 
the other. Nevertheless the temptation to this violation of duty 
is too strong to be successfully resisted by all. American citi- 
zens, educated, as they are, to prize the ballot, and accustomed, 
as they are, to cast it, can not easily school themselves into content- 
ment with not casting it. 

But it is claimed that the framers of the Constitution of our 
State intended that voting at our elections should be always in 
person and never by proxy. Our Pro-Slavery demagogues have 
made so much account of the Pro-Slavery words of some of the 
framers of the Federal Constitution, that the habit of interpreting 
a Constitution in the light of what its framers intended has come 
to obtain all over the country. But in point of fact the intentions 
of its framers as such are not to be allowed to enter at all into the 
interpretation and meaning of a Constitution — no, no more than 
the intentions of the scrivener, Avho wrote the deed, into the 
interpretation and meaning of the deed. What the people who 
adopted it intended by it is the only legitimate inquiry at this 
point : and what they intended by it is to be learned solely from 
its letter where that is unambiguous. Nay more — where the pur- 
pose is to defeat rights (and suffrage is among the highest rights) 
we are not at liberty to seek help outside of the letter of the Con- 
stitution. 

The letter of the Constitution in the case before us is entirely 
free from ambiguity. It clearly leaves it to the Legislature to 
say how the voting shall be — whether in person or by proxy — 
whether it shall be all in one way — or a part in one way, and a 
part in another. It does say that a part of the voting shall be by 
ballot : and it might as easily have said that all voting shall be in 
person. But it does not say it. What it would have said, had it 
spoken on the point, is an utterly impertinent inquiry. Moreover, 
it is a fair, not to say irresistible inference that inasmuch as the 
Constitution does at one point and only one point prescribe the 
manner of voting, it intended to leave it to the Legislature to pre- 
scribe it at every other. I add that were it our custom to vote 
by proxy no one would regard such voting as repugnant to the 
Constitution. But clearly if with that custom it would not be un- 
constitutional, the lacking of that custom can not make it uncon- 
stitutional. Not custom, but the Constitution, determines what 
voting is Constitutional. 

So far as the Constitution is concerned the Legislature may 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 29 

provide that all the voting l>e by proxy. I admit that such a 
provision would be unwise. 1 admit too that I can conceive of no 
other case than that of the soldiers in which it would be wise. 
In their case it would be, not only for the reasons I have men- 
tioned, but because the soldiers are so numerous. I would not, 
for the sake of accommodating a comparative handful of aged or in- 
firm men, have our States allow so objectionable a mode of voting as 
is that by proxy. But for the sake of securing the rights of half 
a million to a, million of soldiers 1 would not only have them allow 
it, but I would denounce the denial of it as unreasonable" and un- 
righteous — a high crime against both tin 1 soldiers and the country. 

For one I shout with joy, and I would have every other lover of 
his dear country and of her dear defenders do so, that there is not 
one line nor one word in our State Constitution against voting by 
proxy. 

1 said that our nation is ruined. She is. But I have never des- 
paired of her recovery from her ruin. Few things inspire me 
with so strong a hope of this recovery as the growing disposition 
to let the army vote. They who meet the rebels face to face, 
know better how to vote than do we who keep ourselves at a safe 
distance from the foe. Ay, and they have better earned the right 
to vote. If either of us must be disfranchised — I, who remain 
amidst the comforts and safety of home, or he who welcomes the 
sufferings and perils of the soldier; I, wdio know the rebels but 
by hearing of them, or he, who knows them by seeing and feeling 
them ; I, who but read of the battles, or he, who has part in 
them — then, in the name of reason and religion, it should be I and 
not he. Gerrit Smith. 

Peterboro, April 20th, 18G3. 



SPEECH AT LOYAL LEAGUE CONVENTION 

IN 

UTICA, MAY 26th, 1863. 



This strikes me as a very mottled assemblage, politically con- 
sidered, and in a certain point of view, morally considered also. 
Here we are, Democrats and Republicans, temperance men and 
anti-temperance men, some one thing and some another, and there 
are soldiers among ns. I see soldiers [applause] Avho have re- 
turned from the battle-field wet with the sweat of war, and some 
of them with its blood. They have returned to receive our bene- 
dictions and to be the witnesses of our enduring and deep gratitude 
for their heroic defense of our bleeding country. [Applause.] 
Now, what is the object that has had the power to collect this 
heterogeneous assemblage ? I answer, it is a common cause. 
This is the mighty loadstone that has been able to draw us to- 
gether, in spite of our mutual differences, in spite of our different 
views and different character. There are persons so bigoted and 
so impracticable as not to consent to come into a common cause. 
I know Democrats who, not even to save their beloved country — 
I can not say, however, how beloved to them — [laughter] — there 
are Democrats, I say, who not even to save this dear country, will 
consent to vote any other than a Democratic ticket ; and I know 
Republicans who will not consent to vote any other but a Repub- 
lican ticket ; and I know Abolitionists, and I am ashamed of them, 
[laughter,] and even temperance men, who will not consent to 
work with any other than their own sort of people. But we, I 
thank God for it, are not such. We, though differing from each 
other at many points, can, nevertheless, when the nation calls for 
it, consent to work together. Now, I ask, what is this common 
cause which has drawn us together ? Just here give me your 
special attention. I ask again, what is this common cause? Is 
it to save the Constitution ? Oh ! it is inexpressibly more than 
that. There are many good, patriotic men, who don't wish the 
Constitution saved as it is ; they wish to have it altered. I, for 
one, would not have one word of it altered ; I have pleaded for it 
with lips and pen, more than any Democrat, living or dead. I 
would not have one word in it altered. [Applause.] Well, if 
this common cause is not to save the Constitution, is it to save 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 31 

the Union? Oh! no, unspeakably more than that. There arc 
good men, and wise men, who do not like all the terms of our 
"Union; I like them all. [Applause.] I have never taken in my 
life, with lips or pen, the slightest exception to any of them ; and 
probably never shall. Well, is it, then, the saving of the country 
that is this common cause ? It is not even that, for there are 
many good men who do not like the present boundaries of our 
country. They wish it to be made smaller. For my own part, 
every rood of it is dear to my heart. [Applause.] I would not 
have one star pass from the National flag. [Applause.] Not 
even poor South-Carolina. [Applause and laughter.] I love 
even South-Carolina. I love her for the memory of her noble men 
who stood by the side of our Revolutionary fathers. I love her 
for another reason ; I love her for what she will become again 
when she shall have come out of her present degeneracy and mad- 
ness. "Well, now, if this common cause which has drawn us to- 
gether is not the saving of the Constitution, nor the saying of the 
Union, nor the saving of the country, pray what, then, is it '? My 
answer will be — and it will leap up from all your hearts to your 
lips — it is the putting down of this accursed and causeless Rebel- 
lion. [Applause.] That is the common cause that has drawn lis 
together. And now, mark you, we all stand together at this 
point, where all good, and just, and patriotic men can and do 
stand with us. [Applause.] And then one thing more: that is 
the very point where unpatriotic and selfish men refuseto stand 
with us. The very point. And yet, some of these unpatriotic and 
self-seeking men, and traitors among them, are very eager to as- 
sure us of their intense regard for the Union and Constitution and 
country. But when we turn upon them with the question, " Are 
you for putting down the Rebellion ?" they are found wanting. 
That is just the only test to apply to them, and under its applica- 
tion they fail. I recollect that more than thirty years ago, when 
Great Britain was agitated by the proposition _ to abolish British 
slavery, some Quakers supplied themselves with an image of a 
kneeling slave, and the appealing question running out of its 
mouth : " Am I not a man and a brother ?" When the candidates 
for seats in Parliament would come round to these Quakers and 
solicit their votes, and tell them of the many fine things they 
would do if elected — things peculiarly acceptable to Qua- 
kers — these cunning Quakers would thrust in the face of these 
candidates this appealing image, and ask of them : " Can you go 
that? If you can't go that, we can't go you." Just so do Ave 
deal with these men, "when they prate about their love for the 
Constitution, the Union, and the country. I ask them, and you 
ask them, can you go for putting down the Rebellion ? If you 
can't go that, we can't go you. Oh ! why should we go these 
vile hypocrites — for such they are — who talk about being for the 
Constitution, and the Union, and the country, and yet go not for 
putting down the Rebellion, the putting down of which can alone^ 
save these blessings to us, and the triumph of which will rob us of 



82 GERRIT SMITH OH" THE REBELLION. 

them all ? And now we have before vis but one duty ; our one 
work is the work of putting down the rebellion. You have got to 
come to this point. I don't allow myself to be a co-worker with 
any one on earth who does not come to this point. The putting 
down of this Rebellion must be done, come what will to Constitu- 
tion and Union, and even country. [Applause.] Can you go 
that ? [Applause and cries of " Yes, yes."] For I hold that our 
duty to Justice, and putting down this Rebellion, is infinitely 
more commanding and absolute than any duty we owe to the 
Constitution or the Union, or even the boundaries of our country. 
I claim that we are to go for putting down the Rebellion uncondi- 
tionally. Can you go that ? You are not to say, we will consent 
to put down the Rebellion on condition of the saving of the Con- 
stitution, the saving of the Union, or the saving of the country. 
You are to say, we go for putting down the Rebellion uncondi- 
tionally; and that is just where these traitorous enemies will not 
go along with us. [Applause.] What! — some one questions 
me — would you go for putting down this Rebellion with all the 
possible risks that the Union, the Constitution, and the country 
might go down with it ? I answer, I would. I answer, I make 
no calculation at all at that point. My only duty has been, from 
the first, the putting down of this Rebellion. And here, some old 
Abolitionists, perhaps, would ask me : Do you go for putting- 
down this Rebellion at all possible hazards, that Slavery may 
survive and be stronger than ever ? I do. I run that risk. 
[Applause.] I have no conditions to make in behalf of any of 
my hobbies, and have not had since the day the news reached me 
at Peterboro of the bombardment of Sumter. [Applause.] And 
now let me here say, that in my philosophy, the putting down of 
crime can not bring any harm to any good — can not bring any 
help to any evil. Hence the putting down of this rebellion, which 
is the crime of crimes, can not bring any possible harm to any 
good, in the Constitution, in the Union, or in the country, or in 
Freedom — none whatever. I call it the crime of crimes. Earth 
has never known a greater crime than this attempt to destroy a 
nation which had never done any thing to provoke that attempt — 
a nation which had always been .not only just, but exceedingly 
partial, to those guilty of this piratical and murderous attempt. 
[Applause.] And now let me here say, that to make ourselves 
most effective in this work, we ought to cultivate earnestness. 
Oh ! what an immense advantage the South has had over us in 
that respect ! If all our early Generals — I beg your pardon, Mr. 
President, I didn't include yourself — [laughter] — you are too 
nearly kindred to me that I should do that — I say if our early 
Generals had had but a tithe of the earnestness that charac- 
terizes the South and Southern Generals, Ave should not have 
needed to be meeting here ; the Rebellion would long ago have been 
ended. And there is one thing more we need to cultivate, and 
that is resentment. Can you go that ? [" Yes, sir," and ap- 
plause.] I know there is a sentimental, namby-pamby religion, 



GERRIT SMITn ON THE REBELLION. 3d 

which takes fright at (lie idea of cultivating resentment. We 
need more resentment to fight the rebels as we ought to fight 
them. That has been our want all the way through. I recall a 
conversation with that great and good man, Theodore Parker, 
which I had a few years before his death — a conversation on the 
dements in human character. He claimed great credit for our 
power of hearty hating. That's like him ; and were he now alive, 
you might be sure of haying at leas tone hearty hater of the Rebel* 
lion. He would exclaim with the Psalmist : "Do not I hate them, 
O Lord! that hate thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred." 
Perhaps some one would remind me of the prayer : " Father, forgive 
them, they know not what they do." Now, I hold that this resent- 
ment is entirely compatible with the highest civilization and 
purest Christianity, and entirely consistent Vith forgiveness; but, 
moreover, these rascals do know what they do. [Great laughter 
and applause.] Our Saviour had none such in his eye when he 
prayed. [Applause.] They know what they do, and they do it 
with a hatred and with a will that puts to shame our indecision 
and gentleness. I say we must go unconditionally for putting 
down the Rebellion. And let me add, our loyalty is to be uncon- 
ditional. We have tried our Government and we can trust it. 
[Applause.] I do not say that we are bound to agree with it in 
all its views of tariffs and other things ; I do not say that we are 
bound to approve all its war measures even. It is entitled to our 
loyalty, because it has abundantly proved itself to be honestly and 
earnestly intent on putting down the Rebellion. I observed this 
forenoon a skittishness on one point — at the point of politics. A 
word on that. I have observed, I meant to say, that some per- 
sons are afraid that this grand Loyal League, into which I would 
have all right men of the North, South, East, and West enter, 
will become a party machine. Now, I would have this grand 
Loyal League a mighty power in politics. That's my view of it. 
[ Applause.] I would have it work day ami night to keep out of 
political office every man who is not unconditionally against the 
Rebellion. I do not say to keep out of office Democrats or Republi- 
cans, but every man who does not stand by the Government — w ho 
is not unconditionally for the Government. I have never in my 
life voted a Republican ticket; for I am, as I think, a Democrat; 
of Democrats. Not a sham, spurious Democrat ; but a man going 
for the equal rights of all men. [Applause.] If any man here 
can say, "I am a Democrat," I answer in Paul's words: "I, 
more." Our great work is before us. It is not to save tin' 
Union, or the Constitution, or the country; that is all prating. I 
do not want to hear a man speak about his love for his country, 
but rather about his hatred of the relbels. I will infer his love for 
his country from his hatred of the rebels. Put down the rebellion, 
and the Union, and the Constitution, and the country will take 
care of themselves. If a murderer should be discovered in Utica, 
the concern is to be, not for the safety of Utica, but to arrest and 
punish the murderer. Arrest and punish him, and Utica will take 
3 



34 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

care of herself. Nor do I want you to talk about what shall he 
done after the Rebellion is put down. The Rebellion is not put 
down yet, and we never shall put it down if we allow ourselves 
to be diverted from the actual and urgent duties of the present to 
speculations in regard to the future. The only problem, Mr. Pres- 
ident, that we can solve to-day, is putting down the Rebellion. I 
would postpone every other thought to that solution. Let me 
add, " sufficient to the day is the evil thereof." "VVe must grudge 
nothing ; we must grudge no help, no precious treasure, no precious 
lives. Neither treasure nor life would be worth any thing to us, 
or any right-minded man, if this Rebellion were triumphant. 
If we should fail, we shall need no property to live on, for then 
we shall be sinking under loads of infamy and anguish of heart, 
and shall desire to live no longer. [Applause.] 



SPEECII ON THE REBELLION AND THE DRAFT 



OSWEGO, JULY 29tii, 1863 



I am embarrassed at the very outset. For I recollect that I am 
an abolitionist ; and I recollect that in the public esteem he who 
is an abolitionist can not be a patriot. How then can I get a 
hearing from you ? For surely you are not willing to hear any 
other than a patriot on National affairs. I must propitiate you if 
I can. I will try the power of a confession to that end. My con- 
fession is — that if a man can not be a patriot whilst yet an aboli- 
tionist, 'he should cease to be an abolitionist — that he should 
renounce his abolition if it at all hinders him from going for his 
country. I add that I go no longer for the Anti-Slavery Society, 
nor for the Temperance Society, no nor for my Church, if they 
go not for my country. 

But what is it to go for one's country? Is it to go for her 
right or wrong ? It is not. The true man goes for nothing in 
himself that is wrong. The true patriot goes for nothing in his 
country that is wrong. It is to go for all her boundaries, and to 
yield up no part of them to her enemy. It is to be unsectional — 
and to know no North and no South, no East and no West. It is 
to go for the unbroken and eternal union of all her sections. It is 
to love her with that Jewish love of country, which takes pleasure 
in her very stones and favors even the dust thereof. How very 
far then is he from going for his country who would surrender a 
part of her to appease the men who have rebelled against her ! 
And let me here say that he does not go for her who, for the sake 
of securing the abolition of slavery, would consent to dismember 
her. Another way for going for one's country is to cling to her 
chosen form of government — in a Avord, to her Constitution. I 
do not mean that it is to prate for her Constitution and to affect a 
deep regard for it, whilst sympathizing with its open enemies — 
ay, and to affect this regard for the very purpose of thereby more 
effectively serving those enemies. It is, as in our case who have 
so excellent a Constitution, sincerely to value and deeply to love 
its great principles of justice, liberty and equality — those very 



36 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

principles which caused the Southern despots to make war upon 
it and fling it away — those very principles Avhich caused the 
Northern sympathizers with these despots to hate it in their 
hearts whilst yet their false lips profess to love it. To go for 
one's country is also to make great account of her cherished 
names and of all that is precious in her institutions, traditions, and 
memories. But of all the ways of going for one's country that of 
going against her enemies is at once the most effective and the 
most evidential of sincerity and earnestness. 

Let us glance at some of our duties in this crisis. 

In the first place, ice are to stand by the Government. Not to 
stand by it is not to stand by the country. Were the Government 
unfaithful I would not say so. But it is faithful. It is intent on 
saving the country. And it is not the weak Government which 
it is accused of being. In both Houses of Congress the cause of 
the country has many able advocates. There are strong men in 
the Cabinet. The President is himself a strong man. His Pro- 
Slavery education is almost the only thing in him to be lamented. 
That education is still in his way. It was emphatically so in the 
early stages of the war. It entangled him with the Border Slave 
States, when he should have been free with the Free States. 
Nevertheless, I take pleasure in acknowledging both his ability 
and honesty ; and this I do notwithstanding I did not vote for 
him and that I never voted for his party. Some of the richest 
and sublimest comments on the Declaration of Independence 
which I have ever read, are from his pen. His letter to the offi- 
cers of the Albany Democratic Convention, is a monument *>f his 
vigorous common-sense, of his clear and convincing logic, of his 
reasonableness and moderation, of his candor and frankness. On 
the whole, Washington always excepted, we have had no Presi- 
dent who is to be more esteemed and beloved than Abraham 
Lincoln. 

I said that not to stand by the Government is not to stand by 
the country. Every man Avho in time of war busies himself in 
slandering the Government and weakening the public confidence 
in it, is among the meanest and worst enemies of the country. 
How base and pernicious the slander that the Government is no 
longer prosecuting the war to save the country ! A State Con- 
vention in Pennsylvania — and that too at the very time when 
the State was invaded and her capital threatened — improved 
upon this slander by deliberately resolving that the Govern- 
ment avows and proclaims that the saving of the country is 
no longer its object in the war. What wonder that there should 
be mobs against drafting soldiers when there are such incitements 
to such mobs ! — when there is so much industry and so much art 
to persuade the people that the drafted soldiers are to be used, not 
for the one legitimate purpose, but for some sinister or party pur- 
pose ! These mobs, though they fill us with sorrow, do neverthe- 
less not surprise us. For we see them to be the natural and 
almost necessary fruit of those incessant declarations by unprin- 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. S7 

cipled politicians that tlic Government has turned away from the 
object of Baving the country, and is now calling for nun and mo- 
ney wherewith to promote other and odious objects. Upon these 
knavish and lying politicians rest the blame and the blood of all 
these mobs. 

In the second place, we are to insist on the immediate and wn- 
conditional submission of the rebels. Nothing short of this would 
Buffice for their humiliation and their good. Moreover, nothing 
short of this would save our Government and our country from 
being deeply and indelibly disgraced — ay, totally wrecked and 
ruined. Therefore there must be no armistice, no terms. To bar- 
gain with them; to give them time; to make concessions to 
them; to purchase peace from them; to make any peace with 
them, whilst as yet they have arms in their hands, would be to 
leave them with even a more incorrigible spirit than they now 
have, and it would also be to leave ourselves without a nation. 
That which would be left to us would be but a nominal nation — 
and it would be liable to be broken up in a twelvemonth. What is 
more, neither the world, nor we ourselves, could ever have any 
respect for it. A nation that is compelled to yield to traitors may 
be respected by both other nations and itself. But a nation which 
has power to overwhelm the traitors, and yet is too corrupt or 
cowardly to wield it, must be, ever after, a stench both in its own 
and in others' nostrils. In the light of what I have just said it is 
not too much to add that whilst Americans who counsel peace on 
any lower terms than the absolute submission of the rebels are 
traitors, those speakers and writers in foreign lands who do like- 
wise are hypocrites, because they well know that what they coun- 
sel for our nation they would, were it counseled for their own, 
promptly and indignantly reject. 

In the third place, ice must not be speculating on what is to be 
done with the rebels after they shall be conquered. Such specu- 
lation is wholly unseasonable and it but tends to divide us. 
Whilst as yet the rebels are unconquered, we can not afford to be 
divided. The needless, foolish, guilty, and exceedingly hurtful 
differences among us are what alone make our conquest of the 
rebels uncertain. When we shall have conquered them, then we 
can talk to our heart's content of what should be done with them 
and their possessions. Besides, we know not now in what mood 
they will be then; and therefore we know not now what it will 
be proper for them to receive at our hands. If they shall be im- 
penitent and defiant, we shall need to impose very careful restric- 
tions upon them ; but if penitent and humble, then we can risk 
being trustful and generous toward them. And then, too, not- 
withstanding their enormous crimes against their country — against 
earth and heaven — we shall gladly look upon our sorrowful 
Southern brethren as our brethren still. 

In the fourth place, toe must insist that other nations shall let us 
alone. Ours is a family quarrel, and none but the family can be 
allowed to meddle with it. We can tolerate neither intervention 



38 GEREIT SMITH ON" THE REBELLION. 

nor mediation. We shall repel both. Mediation, proffered in 
however friendly a spirit, we shall regard as impertinence ; and 
intervention, although bloodless and unarmed at the beginning, we 
shall from the beginning construe into war. And here let me add, 
that whilst we very gratefully acknowledge the able advocacy of 
our cause by many distinguished men of Europe, and no less grate- 
fully the true, intelligent, and generous sympathy with it of the 
masses of Europe ; and that whilst we would not discourage our 
citizens from going abroad to plead that cause ; we, nevertheless, 
are entirely convinced that the work to be done for our country 
is to be done in it— to be done by earnest appeals from Americans 
to Americans, and by hard blows from a loyal upon a disloyal 
army. 

Let us now pass on to consider what should be the character of 
our opposition to the rebellion. I said that the rebels must be 
unconditional in their submission. I add that our opposition to 
the rebels must also be unconditional. The surrender of our- 
selves to our high and holy cause must be absolute. We must 
stipulate for nothing. We must reserve nothing in behalf of our 
Democratic, or Republican, or Abolition, or Temperance, or any 
other party — nothing in behalf of any individual interests. Nay, 
we must make no conditions in behalf of either the Constitution 
or the country. We have now but one work. The putting down 
of the rebellion is the supreme duty which America owes to her- 
self, to mankind, and to God Is it said that recent events have 
given us another work to to ? the work of putting down and 
keeping down mobs? I answer that these mobs are nothing 
more nor nothing less than Northern branches and Northern 
outbreaks of the Southern rebellion, and that the rebellion 
ended, the mobs will also be ended. This, by the way, being 
the true character of these mobs, the Federal war power is as 
clearly bound to lay its restraining hand on those who get them 
up as on any other parties to. the rebellion. It should spare no 
traitorous press, because of its great influence, and no traitorous 
politician, because of his high office, when it is clear that they 
have been at work to generate the passions and prejudices, the 
treason and anarchy which have resulted in disturbances, so 
frightfully marked, in some instances, by fire and blood. 

These mobs, by the way, aside from their destruction of inno- 
cent and precious life, are not to be regretted. Nay, they are to 
be rejoiced in, because they reveal so certainly and so fully the ani- 
mus of the leaders of this " Northern Peace Party," and therefore 
serve to put us more upon our guard against these desperate lead- 
ers. I am not at all surprised at hearing that many an honest 
man, who had sympathized with this party, is so far enlightened 
by these mobs as to turn away from it forever. 

The motto of every man,, among us should be : " Down with 
the Rebellion at whatever cost !" It must go down, even though 
Constitution and country go down with it. If the rebellion 
is to live and triumph, then let all else, however dear, die. 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 39 

Not Constitution nor country, not our farms nor our merchan- 
dise, not our families nor our own lives, could be any longer of 
value to us. Are there Republicans who, in this trial hour of in- 
tegrity, are intent on keeping their party hi power ? then are they 
false to their country. In time of peace let there be parties to 
represent the different views in regard to the proper character 
and conduct of the Government. But in time of war to cling to 
party is treason to the country. For then the great question is, 
no longer as in time of peace, how the Government shall be 
shaped and administered, but the infinitely greater one — whether 
we shall have a country to govern. Are there Democrats who. 
at such a time, are intent on getting their party into power r 
False to their country are they also. Is it their plea that they are 
talking for the Constitution ? I answer, that their talk should be 
against the rebels. This talking for the Constitution, whilst not 
talking against the rebels, is but hypocrisy. Are there Aboli- 
tionists whd say that they can not help put down the rebellion un- 
less the Government will pledge itself to put down slavery ? Let 
me say, that with such one-idea men I have no sympathy. Like 
the sham Republicans and sham Democrats I have referred to, 
they are but workers for the rebels. To all who feel this unsea- 
sonable and treasonable solicitude for party, let me say that the 
true doctrine is : " Come what will of it to the Republican, or 
Democratic, or Abolition, or any other party — though they all go 
to flinders and be reducedjto aheap of ruins — the Rebellion, 'never- 
theless, shall be put down !" Moreover, notwithstanding our dif- 
ferences in other relations and other respects, we are all to be 
brothers and close fellow-laborers in the work of putting d< i 
the Rebellion. The laborers in this work we are not to know as 
Democrats, or Republicans, or Abolitionists, or Temperance men, 
but only as anti-rebellion men. During the greater part of my 
life I have tried to do something against slavery and drunkenness. 
But in this great battle against the. Southern rebels and their 
Northern allies, whose success would, in its results, be the entire 
overthrow of free Government, not only here and in Mexico, but 
wherever it exists, I am ready to fight alongside of all who will 
fight alongside of me: with, if you please, the biggest drunkard 
on the one side and the biggest pro-slavery man ou the other. 
Whilst I am against all who are for the rebels, I am for all v. 
are against them. F/ntil the Rebellion is crushed we should know 
but two parties : the one made up of those who, in standing by 
and strengthening the Government, prove themselves to be the 
friends of the country ; and the other made up of those who, in 
assailing and weakening the Government, prove themselves to be 
the enemies of the country. Are there, I repeat, Abolitionists 
who, in such a time as this, stand back and refuse to join in put- 
ting down the Rebellion save on^the condition that slavery also 
shall be pnt down? If there are, then are they also among those 
who embarrass the Government, and then are they also to be 
numbered with the enemies of the country. If there are such 



4.0 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

Abolitionists, I am persuaded they are few. But whether they 
are few or many, let me say that it is very little to their credit to 
let the crime of slavery fill the whole field of their vision and blind 
them to the far greater and more comprehensive crime of the re- 
bellion. Will they reply, that the rebellion is but slavery — 
slavery in arms ? Then upon their own ground they should be 
helping to put it down, since the putting of it down would be 
the putting down of slavery also. 

I referred to Mexico. If our rebellion shall succeed, her fate is 
sealed. If it should fail, then it may even be that Napoleon's is 
sealed. I say not that our Government would be disposed to 
meddle with him. But I do say that our people would be. Tens 
of thousands of our disbanded troojDS would hasten to Mexico to 
make common cause with their outraged republican brethren. I 
add, that whilst despots everywhere would exult in the triumph 
of our rebellion, despots everywhere will tremble at its over- 
throw. 

Some of my hearers may think, because I said we must make 
no conditions in its behalf, that I am not suited with the Con- 
stitution. I am entirely suited with it. I have always opposed 
changes in it, and probably always shall. No Democrat even 
has spoken or written so much for it just as it is as I have. Let 
not a word in it be altered. It is exactly what we want of a Con- 
stitution, both in peace andj Avar. Governor Seymour says, in 
his Fourth of July speech that the Government has suspended it. 
If it has, it has done very wrong. I do not see that it has in 
even the slightest degree. But there are some things which the 
Governor and I see with very different eyes. For instance, the 
Governor and the men of his school see that the blame of the war 
rests chiefly upon the North. On the other hand, I see that every 
particle of it rests on the South. They say that our talking and 
legislating against slavery annoyed the South ; and we, in turn, 
say that her talking and legislating for it annoyed the North. But 
we deny that the annoyance did in either case justify war. As 
to the talking — it must be remembered that our Southern and 
Northern fathers agreed upon a Government, which tolerates 
talk — talk even against good things — against things which, if that 
be possible, are better than even slavery. So the South should 
not make war upon us because we talk against her slavery; and 
we should not make war upon her because she stigmatizes our no- 
ble farmers and noble mechanics as "the mudsills of society." 
Then, as to the legislation, it must be remembered that whilst 
Ave were willing to have the constitutionality of ours passed upon 
by the Supreme Court of the United States, she threatened to mur- 
der and actually drove from her the honorable men whom we de- 
puted to visit her for the purpose of getting her consent to such a 
testing of her pro-slavery legislation. Truly, truly do I pity the 
man Avho is so perverted as to divide the blame of this war be- 
tAveen the North and the South. The North is not only mainly 
but entirely innocent of it. 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 41 

I eulogized the Constitution. Let not the eulogy be construed 
into my overrating of a Constitution. I frankly say thai if I 
thoughl that our Constitution stood at all in the way of our most 
effective prosecution of the war, I should rejoice to have it swept 
out of the way. The country is more than the Constitution. I 
would not exchange one of her majestic mountains or rivers for 
all the Constitutions you could pile up between earth and heaven. 
God made the country. But man made the Constitution.' The 
loss of the country would he irreparable. But if the Constitution 
is lost, we will rely upon his inspirations of the human mind for 
another. 

I spoke disparagingly of one-idea men. There is a sense in 
which I wish that all of us were one-idea men. I would that all 
of us might be one-idea men until the Rebellion is put down. To 
put it down — this, this is the one idea of which I would have 
every man possessed to the exclusion of every rival idea. For the 
sake of no other idea would I have conditions made with this 
paramount idea. Were we all such one-idea men/the North would 
triumph speedily — and so grandly too as to win the admiration and 
esteem even of the South. And then would the North and the 
South again become a nation — not, as before, an inharmonious 
and short-lived one, but a nation at peace with itself, at peace 
with every other nation, and therefore a permanent nation. God 
grant us this glorious and blessed future ! And he will grant it, 
if we are sp manly and patriotic, so wise and just, as to postpone 
every other claim to. that of our country and every other duty to 
that of putting down the Rebellion. ! 

Let us now take up the Conscription Law. Some say that it is 
unconstitutional. I can not see any thing unconstitutional in it — 
though perhaps I could were I a lawyer. Some go so far as 
to deny that the Constitution gives Congress the right to compel 
jiersons to defend the country. All I can say is, that if it did not 
give the right, it should not have empowered Congress" to declare 
war and raise and support armies. For thus to have empowered 
it was in that case but to mock it. It was only to seem to give 
much whilst really giving nothing. 

For one, I do not look into the Constitution for proof that the 
National Legislature has the right to compel persons to fight the 
battles of the country. It is enough for me to know that this 
vital right inheres in a National Legislature — that the supreme 
power of a nation necessarily has it — and that a Constitution 
which should deny or in the slightest degree restrict it, would be 
fit only to be thrown away. For the credit of the Constitution, I 
am happy that it recognizes and asserts the right. But the Con- 
stitution does not create it. My refusal to look into the Constitu- 
tion for the origination of this right rests on the same principle 
as that by which I am withheld from looking into the Bible for 
the origination of the parent's right to take care of his children. 
It is, I admit, one of the merits of this best of books that it re- 
cognizes the right and enjoins its exercise. But the right is older 



42 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

than the Bible. It elates as far back as the time of the first parent. 
It is an inherently parental as the other is an inherently national 
right, 

It is also said that the Conscription Law favors the rich, and 
oppresses the poor. The National and State militia laws do so ; 
but the Conscription Law spartes the poor and spares not the rich. 
Members of Congress, Postmasters, and a score of other classes, 
making in all no very small share of the men, are, under those 
laws, exempted from military service ; whilst under the Conscrip- 
tion Law none but poor men are exempted, save only the Vice- 
President, the Heads of Departments, the TJnited States Judges, 
and the Governors of the States. And now mark how numerous 
must be the several classes of the exempted poor. 

1st. The only son of the widow dependent on his labor. 

2d. The only son of aged or infirm parents dependent on his 
labor. 

3d. One of the two or more sons of such parents. 

4th. The only brother of orphan children not twelve years old 
dependent on his labor. 

5th. The father of motherless children under twelve years of age 
dependent on his labor. 

6th. Where there are a father and sons in the family, and two of 
them are in the army and in humble positions in it, the residue 
not exceeding two are exempt. 

Now, was there ever a law less sparing of the rich and more 
tender to the poor ? And yet this law, so exceedingly honorable 
to the heads and hearts of its makers, is denounced as oppressive 
and cruel by demagogues who, to get themselves into power, 
would destroy the popular confidence in the Government and de- 
stroy the country also. 

But, it is held, that the commutation or three hundred dollar 
clause is oppressive to the poor. It is, on the contrary, merciful 
to the poor. But for it the price of a substitute might run up to 
three or four times three hundred dollars — a price which a poor 
man would scarcely ever be enabled to pay. The three hundred dol- 
lars,|however, many a poor man can, with the help of friends, be able 
to raise. But why not, it may be asked, have favored the poor 
by making the maximum no more than fifty or a hundred dollars ? 
This, instead of favoring, would have but oppressed the poor. 
For the Government, not being able to procure substitutes at 
the rate of fifty or a hundred dollars, would have been compelled 
to repeat its drafts. And thus tens of thousands of poor men 
who had paid their fifty or a hundred dollars in order to keep out 
of the army would after all be obliged to enter it. 

Alas ! this clamor against the unconstitutionality of the Con- 
scription Law ! How sadly it betrays the prevailing lack of pa- 
triotism ! Had there been no unpatriotic person amongst us, there 
would have been not only nothing of this clamor, but not so much 
as one inquiry into the constitutionality of the law. The com- 
monness of this inquiry indicates how commonly the love of 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 43 

country must be very weak in the American bosom. Why is it 
so weak? Some say it is because of our characteristic or Yankee 
greed of gain ; and some say it is because of our long-continued 
and soul-shriveling practice of persecuting and outraging an un- 
fortunate race. Some ascribe it to one thing and some to another. 
But whatever the cause, the effect is obvious. 

Oh ! how base must they have become who, when rebels are at 
the throat of their nation, can hie themselves to the Constitution 
to^see how little it will let them off with doing against those 
rebels — how little with doing for the life of that nation! •Our 
noble Constitution should be used to nourish our patriotism; but 
alas ! it is perverted to kill it ! 

I have noticed the action of the authorities of several of the 
cities of our State, in regard to the Conscription Law. In some 
of them this action is very bad. The sole object of the law is to 
raise an additional force for completing the destruction of the Re- 
bellion. Now, the city of New- York and some other cities would 
take advantage of its humane feature of commutation to defeat 
this sole object of the law. For they would take advantage of it 
to buy off the mass of their drafted citizens. This wholesale buy- 
ing violates to the last degree the spirit of the law ; deprives the 
country of the benefit of the legitimate and intended effect of the 
law; and saves the Rebellion from being crushed by the faithful 
and fair carrying out of the law. If one city may resort to this 
wholesale buying, so may every other ; so may every county, and 
so may every State ; and so may the Conscription Law be ren- 
dered unavailing. 

I admit the duty of the wealthy to avail themselves of this com- 
mutation clause to save, here and there, from going to the war 
the man to whom it would be a peculiar hardship to go. I also 
admit that every city, disposed to do so, can very properly vote 
the three hundred dollars to every drafted man who serves or to 
his substitute. I care not how much the cities help the soldiers. 
The more the better. I am glad that Oswego voted ten thousand 
dollars two years ago, and five thousand last spring to the fami- 
lies of her soldiers. Let her vote hereafter as much as she pleases 
to the soldiers and their families. I will pay cheerfully what share 
of the tax shall fall on my property in the city ; and more cheer- 
fully would I take part in voluntary contributions. 

I have sometimes heard the remark that neither the rich nor the 
poor should be allowed to procure substitutes. The remark is 
both ill-natured and foolish. Among the drafted will be both rich 
and poor men, who ought to be spared from going to the Avar. I 
am not sorry that so many rich men have gone to the war. Nev- 
ertheless, let as many rich men as will remain at home to con- 
tinue to give employment to the poor in manufactories and else- 
where, and to maintain a business and a prosperity which can be 
heavily taxed to meet the expenses of the war. Men of property 
should be heavily taxed to this end ; and my only objection to the 



44 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

Income Tax, is that it is not more than half large enough. It 
should he six and ten instead of three and five per cent. 

But I must close. Plow unreasonable, how unpatriotic, how 
wicked to murmur at this draft ! The South, to serve her had cause, 
is, at this moment, responding to the call for absolutely all her 
able-bodied white males between the ages of eighteen and forty- 
five ; whilst the call to serve our best of all causes is for not more 
than about one seventh or one eighth between those ages. And 
yet we murmur at the draft ; and in a few localities there is a 
rabble so far under the sway of traitorous demagogues, as to resist 
it with force and arms. These demagogues, by the way, as silly 
as they are wicked, instead of seeing in this resistance only another 
argument with the Government for proceeding promptly, very 
promptly with the draft, flattered themselves that the Govern- 
ment would succumb to the mobs and abandon the draft ; would 
surrender to anarchy instead of maintaining law. 

Our people need to be loyally educated. When they are, they 
will be eager to serve their imperiled and beloved country in any 
way, however expensive or hazardous. I rejoice to see that in 
many parts of the country the draft is met in a cheerful and patri- 
otic spirit. May this spirit soon obtain everywhere 

The love of country — the love of country — that is what we 
lack. Would that we had somewhat of that love of country 
which Robert Emmet felt for his dear Ireland ; somewhat of that 
love of country which awakens the sublime utterances of Kossuth 
for his dear Hungary ; somewhat of that love of country which 
stirs the great soul of Garibaldi, as he contemplates his still, but 
not-ever-to-be, disunited Italy ; somewhat of that love of country 
which arms her young men, ay and her young maidens too, to 
battle for their down-trodden and dear Poland ! Let us have 
somewhat of such love — and then when our bleeding country 
makes her call upon us, we shall not pause to inquire whether it 
is couched in Constitutional words ; but we shall hasten to obey 
it, simply because it is our country that makes it, and our country 
that needs our obedience. 



SPEECH AT YOUNG MEN'S MASS CONVENTION, 



SYRACUSE, SEPTEMBER 3d, 1803. 



It was my good fortune to be in the Convention when the Presi- 
dent's admirable and unanswerable letter was read — was so well 
read — so dramatically and effectively read. I felt at the close of 
it, that we could afford to adjourn the Convention at that moment 
sine die. I felt that we would be warranted in returning to our 
homes and telling our neighbors that we had been in the best Con- 
vention we had ever been in ; and that the President's letter was 
of itself a full feast for the patriotic heart. But the Convention 
desired speaking also. They have had from Lieut.-Governor Noble 
a speech that kindled their patriotism to the highesl pitch, and that 
convulsed them with its abounding wit. The man who follows 
him with a plain speech is at no little disadvantage. Neverthe- 
less, it is wholesome to have a little plain fare mixed up with our 
rich fare. There is another embarrassment that I am under. I 
am so delighted with the President's letter that I do not know 
that I shall be able to compose myself to make a sober speech; 
and I should be sorry to have my speech marked with the intoxi- 
cation of joy. 

W e read that on a certain occasion Moses stood and said : 
"Who is on the Lord's side? let him come unto me." lie did not 
ask : " Who is of the tribe of Judah or Benjamin, or who is of 
any other tribe — who is of this party or that — who has these views 
or those ?" His simple and sole inquiry was : " Who is on the 
Lord's side?" 

And so when traitors have risen up to destroy, our nation, there 
is but one question for us to put. It is: "Who is on the side of 
the country?" By the way, none who at such a time do not 
hasten to the side of their country, can give much evidence of 
being on the Lord's side. 

Why is it, gentlemen, that T am here? It is thirty-five years 
this year since I have taken part in a Democratic, or a Whig, or 
a Republican meeting; and I never in my life was in a Native 
American meeting. If only because one of my grand-parents was 
born in Ireland, it would be ungracious in me to countenance a 



46 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

meeting which is a meeting against the foreign-born. I am here, 
gentlemen, because I heard you call : " Who is on the side of the 
country ?" Once some of you were members of the Democratic 
party ; and your call then was : " Who is on the side of the De- 
mocratic party ?" Once some of you were of the Republican 
party ; and your call then was : " Who is on the side of the Re- 
publican party ?" For one I did not listen to either call. I was 
too much interested in other things to be much interested in party 
politics. But now when your call is, "Who is on the side of the 
country ?" — now, when I see you have sunk party in patriotism 
and are making more account of country than of the sum total of 
all other earthly interests — now, I am quick to hear you and glad 
to come to you. Now, I am with you " arm and soul." Now my 
lot is cast in with yours. And now I exclaim from the' heart : 
" Una spes unaque solus ambobus erit." 

I commend you, gentlemen, for your giving up of party. I say 
not that political party should never be. On the contrary, I ad- 
mit that honest and wide differences of opinion in regard to the 
proper character and conduct of Government, may render party 
justifiable, if not indeed necessary, in time of peace. But in time of 
war, when the question is whether there will be a Government left 
us to differ about — nay, whether there will be so much as a country 
left us to govern — then clearly all should give up party, and join 
hands to save the country. The Republican party has clone well 
to disband. Alas ! that the Democratic party did not also dis- 
band ! 

Party in time of war is the greatest of all evils and the heaviest 
of all curses. I am so old as to remember the war of 1812-15 ; 
and to remember how party then divided the country and her 
councils ; and how party interests, and the Hartford Conven- 
tion, and other party measures brought the country to the brink of 
ruin. Of course we all remember how quick was party in our 
present war to raise its snaky, hissing, hated head. No sooner 
had the President called for the seventy -five thousand men to save 
the country from the traitors who were threatening to march upon 
it, than party sent up the cry that the war was unconstitutional. 
While patriotism was calling out earnestly to save the country, 
party was calling out hypocritically to save the Constitution. The 
really humane would save the drowning man. The pretendedly 
humane are very solicitous to save his hat. The conventional and 
fashion-bound Englishman woidd not rescue the drowning man, 
because he had not been introduced to him. The Englishman's 
order of doing things was, first to be introduced to the man and 
afterward to save him. With no less absurdity do these dema- 
gogues put the saving of the Constitution before the saving of the 
country. For a quarter of a century I have spoken and written 
abundantly for that instrument — for that instrument just as it is — 
line for line and letter for letter. -But now, when my country is 
in such fearful peril, my absorbing concei'n is to save her. I would 
save her with the Constitution if I could ; but with] or without the 



GERRIT SMHTI ON THE REBELLION. 47 

Constitution I would save her. The country is more than the Con- 
stitution. 3Iuch do I love the Constitution ; hut I love my country 
infinitely more. Let me, however, here say, that I know not that 
the Government has claimed any unconstitutional power in the 
prosecution of this war. It certainly did not need to. The Con- 
stitution gives all needed power for the most effective prosecution 
of the war. 

It was the Democratic party that was appealed to (and alas so 
successful !) hy this cry to save the Constitution. I am not saying 
that this party was less worthy than the Republican party. Had 
the Democratic party been in power when the war broke out, it 
would, I trust, have conducted the war loyally and vigorously, 
and successfully ; and the Republican party, had it in that case 
kept up its organization, would, I fear, have proved as factious 
and disloyal as the Democratic party has proved itself. I care not 
what party it is — Republican or Democratic — if it keeps up its 
organization in time of war, it will soon show that it sets party 
above the country. This will be emphatically true if it is a party 
against those who are carrying on the war. Nothing has gone 
further to show the selfishness, baseness, and treasonableness of 
the Democratic party than its incessant claim through this war, 
that the war can never be brought to a successful close but by the 
Democratic party. How we are disgraced in the eyes of Europe 
by this declaration, that our country can be saved not by the 
country, but by party ! And how much encouragement it has 
ministered to the rebels ! 

But some of you may be disposed to remind me that the old 
Democratic party kept up its organization during the last war. 
It did, and the blame of it was due quite as much to the Federal 
party as to the Democratic. The keeping up of the Federal or- 
ganization provoked the keeping up of the Democratic. The truth 
is, that neither of these parties was what it should be. The Demo- 
cratic party favored France and the Federal party favored Eng- 
land. The Democratic party followed the fortunes of the elder 
Napoleon, and the Federal party was not yet weaned from its de- 
grading partiality for England. Not until after our last war Avith 
England were our political parties above serving foreign powers. 

Let us glance at some of the evils that have sprung from the 
maintenance of party organization during this war. 

First, during the whole war, party has been calling on the gov- 
ernment to compromise with the rebels and patch up a peace Avith 
them. And this, too, notwithstanding the rebels have incessantly 
replied that they would consent to no peace with us but on the 
condition of their being alloAved to dismember the nation and be- 
come entirely independent of us. Party has even gone so far as 
to propose that we come under the Southern or Montgomery Con- 
stitution. But even at this point she has spurned us. On no 
terms, hoAvever advantageous to herself or humiliating to us, 
would she consent to live with us. The degrading attitude to- 
ward her, during this Avar, of many of our Northern politicians 



48 GEKRIT SMITH ON THE KEBELLION. 

has very much, increased her contempt of us. She always despised 
us for our truckling to her. 

And what if the rebels were willing to make peace with us, 
could Ave consent to make peace with them, whilst as yet they 
have arms in their hands, without covering our nation with in- 
famy, and sinking it in ruin? Certainly not. We are not now 
to make peace with them ; hut we are to insist on their uncondi- 
tional submission ; and we are to keep on pursuing and pressing 
and punishing them until we have brought them to it. Uncondi- 
tional must be our opposition to the rebels, and unconditional 
must be their submission to us. We are to carry on the war, 
stipulating for nothing in behalf of our Democratic, or Republi- 
can, or Abolition party, or tariffs, or aught else ; and they are to 
lay down their arms, stipulating for nothing in behalf of their 
houses, or lands, or slaves, or free trade, or aught else. 

The question is often put whether we would consent to receive 
back a Rebel State. Certainly we would. On what conditions ? 
it is asked. On the condition of her unconditional surrender. 
But on what conditions beyond that ? it is asked. We rejoin that 
we have not one word to say, nay, hardly one thought to think 
about further conditions until the first one has been complied with 
and she has surrendered absolutely. When our child has revolt- 
ed against our parental authority, he is first to submit to it ere he 
is entitled to even the least intimations of what will be our subse- 
quent treatment of him. It will be time enough after her sub- 
mission to say, and perhaps time enough even to think, what we 
shall do with her after her submission. To take up that question 
now is but to multiply divisions among ourselves, and to make 
it uncertain whether we shall be able to compel her submission. 
The rebels, guilty, without the least provocation, of attempting 
to destroy our nation, are surely entitled to know nothing of 
what we shall do with them after we have conquered them. They 
must resign themselves to our measure of justice, generosity, and 
forgiveness ; and I trust, that they will not find us greatly lacking 
in these virtues. For one I have never taken pleasure in this talk 
about banishing, imprisoning and hanging the rebels. Our South- 
ern brethern some of them are very wicked, and more of them 
deeply deluded. But they are our brethren still ; and I hope 
that should we succeed in conquering them, we shall be disposed 
to make every concession to them which is compatible with their 
safety and ours, their welfare and ours. 

I notice that the Democratic leaders are very desirous to save 
Slavery. I admit that we should be very desirous to save every 
very good thing ; and I am not denying that Slavery is a very 
good thing. But these leaders go further and insist that in the 
putting down of the Rebellion, Slavery shall be saved. In this, 
however, they are as wrong as are those abolitionists who insist 
that the putting down of the Rebellion shall be conditioned on the 
putting down of Slavery. But the true doctrine on this point is 
that the Rebellion shall go down, whether Slavery shall or shall 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 49 

not go down "u -'nli it. Our one common work is to put down the 
Rebellion ; and no part of that one common work is to put up or 
to pu1 down Slavery. I readily admit thai a people may Buffer 
wrongs so deep as to justify them in breaking up their national 
relations. But the only wrong we ever did the South was, to in- 
dulge her and let her have her own way. I confess that we did 
in this wise contribute largely to spoil her. This is our only of- 
fense against her. 

I proceed in my mention of some of the evils which have grown 
out of the maintenance of party during this war. From the first, 
party has been so unpatriotic and insane as to ohject to our accept- 
ing the help of the negro. Whenever it has been proposed to let 
him fight for us, party, playing upon the popular prejudice against 
the negro, has objected to turning the Avar into a war for the 
negro. I admit that it is not a war for the negro, and that it is 
not a war lor the abolition of Slavery. I admit that it is a war 
for nothing else than to put down a base, brutal, abominable, 
causeless, accursed Rebellion. But how disingenuous, how wick- 
ed, how absurd to say that letting the, negro fight for us is turning 
the war into a war for the negro ! As well might it be said that 
letting the Indians fight for us is turning it into a Avar for the 
Indians. I have seen within a few days that the Kansas Indians 
offer us their assistance in punishing the plundering and murder- 
ous invaders of Kansas. Shall Ave decline this assistance for fear 
that accepting it will giA'e the Democrats another occasion for 
charging Us with perverting the Avar V 

Common-sense teaches us that Ave should get the negro to help 
us if we can ;' and the Indian also if Ave can ; and the devil himself 
if Ave can. I avouUI that Ave could succeed in getting our harness 
upon his back and in making him work for us. It would by the 
Avay, be doing a great favor to the old rascal to make him serve a 
good cause once in his life. To serve so good a cause as ours 
Avould improve even so bad a character as the devil's. 

And here let me say that had the Government brought negroes 
into the Army as fast as it should, (and it should have brought 
them in as fast as it could,) there would haA*e been no need of this 
draft, which is so trying to the North. Very trying it is, if only 
because our innumerable departments of industry, which are all so 
especially actiA r e at this time, can not Avell spare any laborers. 
Why did not the GoA'ernment take the black man avIio wanted to 
fight for us, and spare the white man Avho preferred to remain in 
his family and business ? I blame the Government at this point. 
It is true that I blame the Democratic party for keeping up its 
clamor against using the black man, and for thus making the Gov- 
ernment afraid to use him. But I blame the Government also for 
allowing itself to be frightened out of its duty. I admit that the 
Government has shown itself strong at many points. But there is 
one point Avhere it has been Avont 'to sIioav itself Aveak. I refer 
to its excessive desire to propitiate the Democratic party and 



50 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

avoid its censure. Its true policy was to study to please its friends 
rather than to avoid displeasing its enemies. Nevertheless, I like 
the government. It is an honest, patriotic, and able government. 
I say this though I did not vote for it, and though I never voted 
the Republican ticket. I say it, too, though I had the same cause 
for rebelling against the government which the South had. She 
rebelled because Lincoln was elected. But Lincoln was no more 
my candidate than he was hers. If she might rebel simply be- 
cause an election went against her, so might I when one went 
against me. There is this difference between the South and my- 
self; I stand by the country, however an election may go ; and 
she trys to destroy it if an election does not go to suit her. I add 
here in connection with what I said a little way back, that it is 
not for Democrats to denounce the draft. Their party was op- 
posed to letting negroes come into the army, and so white men 
had to be drafted into it. It is the policy of his own party that 
compels the drafted Democrat to serve in the place of the negi*o. 
The negro stood ready to serve in the place of the white man ; 
but the Democratic party would not consent to it. 

I go on to say that the late mobs are amongst the sad fruits of 
keeping up party in time of war. These mobs were an open join- 
ing of Northern traitors with Southern traitors. Shouts for the 
Southern traitors were often heard in them. None but enemies of 
the Government and friends of the rebels were in them. In a 
word, none but Democrats. Can the Democratic party live under 
so damning a fact ? I think not. Had it disbanded when the 
war broke out, there would have been none of these mobs to dis- 
grace and damn it. There would then have been no* demagogues 
to get them up ; no Vallandighams and Woods to talk and write 
treason ; and no newspapers to print it, and urge the Governor 
Seymours to practice it. 

I need mention no more of the workings and fruits of this main- 
tenance of party in time of war. Said I not well that such main- 
tenance is the greatest of all perils and curses ? As soon as war 
begins party should be dropped. The demagogue, who after that 
keeps on juggling with party names and party words, is the most 
dangerous enemy of his country. For in this wise he is able to 
lead against his country in time of war the many who, with com- 
parative harmlessness, had been accustomed to follow him in time 
of peace. No men at the South — not even the Davis's and Steph- 
ens's — are so dangerous to us as these Northern demagogues who 
in time of war slander and embarrass the Government ; poison and 
pervert the public mind ; get up mobs ; and succeed in electing to 
office men who are in sympathy/with the South. Our motto should 
be, " No party in war." 

Again, I say that our common work now is to put down the Re- 
bellion. Come what will of the putting of it down to the Demo- 
cratic or Republican or Abolition party, it must be put down. 
Come what will of it to Slavery or Anti-Slavery, it must be put 
down. Slavery may be incidentally helped or harmed by it. But 



GERRTT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 51 

neither the helping nor harming of it is an object of this one com- 
mon work. 

By all, then, that is precious in our country, which they are so 
fearfully imperiling by continuing in the Democratic party, would 
I exhort the honest masses of that party to quit it. And I would 
have them join no other until the Rebellion is crushed. I do not 
exhort them to quit it because it is the Democratic party, but 
simply because it keeps up its organization in time of war. When 
peace shall return to bless our blood-soaked land, they can again, 
if they please, become members of the Democratic party. I say 
nothing against either a Democratic or a Republican party, only 
that neither should be kept up in time of war. 

By all, too, that is precious in a good name — a good name to be 
enjoyed by ourselves and to be transmitted to our children — 
would I exhort the honest masses of the Democratic party to quit 
it. The boldest and most unprincipled portion of its leaders will 
stamp its character ; and necessarily, therefore, it will be a very 
black one — so black as to reflect not a little disgrace upon every 
man who belongs to the party. Why will the memory of the Val- 
landighams and Woods rot — or if it live, live but to be loathed ? 
Because they were guilty of the crime, ay, of the treason, of cling- 
ing to party in war, and of using party against their country. 
And why will the Dickinsons and Butlers be ever bright and 
beautiful upon the page of history ? Because when war came 
they gave up party for country. 

By all, too, that is mortifying in a signal and utter failure, 
would I exhort the honest masses of the Democratic party to quit 
it. The Rebellion will go down. It will go down into the lowe>t 
depths of infamy, destruction, and despair. And the Democratic 
party, because its leaders have identified it with the Rebellion, 
will go down with the Rebellion. Yes, it will go down as dis- 
graced, as deep and as dead as the Rebellion. The Federal party 
had to die immediately after our last war with England, because it 
had placed itself in the way of our Government's prosecution of 
that war. The Democratic party is opposing the Government's 
putting down of the guiltiest enemies a nation ever had; and 
therefore the Democratic party must also die. 

Let me, in closing, say, that not only traitorous Democrats will 
find their damnation in this Mar; but that every other man, be he 
Republican or Abolitionist, will find it, if he traitorously refuses 
to identify himself with the endeavors of our honest and earnest 
Government, and of our brave and immortalized army and navy to 
put down this infernal Rebellion. No one of them nil — if, indeed, 
any moral sensibility can survive in him — but will feel, under the 
outpourings upon him of the world's scorn and disgust, that it 
were better for him had he never been born. 



THE REBELLION. 

SPEECH IN MONTREAL, DEC. 19th, 1863. 



I chose this time for visiting Montreal because I saw in the 
newspapers that a case involving the reputation of one of my old 
and dear friends (Hon. J. R. Giddings) was to he tried in your 
courts at this time. Being in your city, I was not only willing 
hut glad to consent to make a speech on the state of my country. 

I love Canada. My own mother was horn on the hanks of your 
Sorel. It has ever been my desire that my country and yours 
should be peaceable and pleasant neighbors. I was a member of 
the American Congress when, nine years ago, it sanctioned the 
Reciprocity Treaty between us. Other members' may have 
worked for that sanction more influentially and efficiently, but 
none worked harder for it than I did. It is extensively believed 
in my country that the treaty is more advantageous to you than 
to us ; and I notice a present movement in Congress for discon- 
tinuing it. I hope that it and every other movement to this end 
may fail. I love the treaty. I love it, because it tends to pro- 
mote friendly intercourse and to multiply ties between us. This 
is, in my judgment, far more important than to make money out 
of it. I am, myself, in favor of an absolutely free trade. I would 
not have a custom-house on the earth. I believe that the great 
and good Father of us all would have his children left free to buy 
and sell in all the markets. I would, of course, have the ex- 
changes between nations include merchandise and manufactures. 
But if there are nations that refuse to include them, I, nevertheless, 
would not have my nation refuse to exchange natural productions 
with such nations. 

My country is sorely afflicted. A Rebellion, the most gigantic 
and also the most guilty the world ever saw, has broken out 
against her. Nevertheless, all Canadians do not sympathize with 
her. I do not infer this from the fact that persons within her 
borders have recently sought to make Canada a base of military 
operations against us. These persons, I doubt not T were nearly 
all refugees from my own country. I am sure the Canadians did 
not countenance the crime. Nor did their Government. Nay, I 
am informed that it was some one in their Government (thanks to 
that some one !) who informed Lord Lyons of the plot. Thanks 



GERRIT SMITII ON THE REBELLION. 53 

to Lord Lyons also, who, as the story runs, left his bed at mid- 
night to inform my Government of it! No, it is not from this 
that I infer the lack of Canadian sympathy. It is from other 
tilings, and* especially from the spirit of many of the Canadian 
newspapers. There are Canadian newspapers, and some of them 
are in this city, that speak rightly of our Rebellion. I read the 
Toronto Globe: and I would that all your newspapers spoke of the 
Rebellion in the spirit in which that able and excellent newspaper 
speaks of it. 

I said that I lore Canada. I add that I love Great Britain also. 
Toward her as well as toward Canada I stand in filial relations. 
For my mother's mother was born in green Ireland : and if hav- 
ing a Livingston for a grandfather makes a Scotchman, then ami 
a Scotchman also. But more than this, all men of my advanced 
age, whose childhood's language was the English, are more or less 
educated by Great Britain. Our manners, habits, character's come 
in no small degree from the moulding influences of her states- 
men, historians, poets, and novelists. 

I referred to the lack in Canada of sympathy with my dis- 
tressed country. There is the like lack in Great Britain also. I do 
not infer it from her acknowledgment of belligerent rights in the 
rebels. I justify that acknowledgment : and my country should 
feel herself estopped from complaining of it by the fact that she 
found herself obliged to accord these rights to the rebels. The 
simple truth is, that the rebels were too numerous to be treated 
as pirates and outlaws. Just here however let me say that burning 
captured ships at sea is not among belligerent rights. If the reb' - 
have no ports into which to take the captured vessel for adjudica- 
tion, then so far they have no belligerent rights. Nor do I infer 
this lack of British sympathy from the fact that British-built ves- 
sels have gone out from British ports to be used by the rebels in 
preying upon the commerce of my country. I am sure that the 
people of Great Britain do not approve this : and the British 
Government is giving honorable and satisfactory testimony that 
it also does not approve it. Morebver, not only the British con- 
science but the British interest is against it. For Great Britain 
to justify or to suffer this indirect war upon us woidd be to leave 
herself without cause of complaint when in turn we should 
treat her so. That we should be provoked to such retaliation is 
well-nigh certain. Nor do I argue this lack of sympathy in Great 
Britain from her treatment of us in the Trent affair — wrong as I 
think it to have been. A word about that treatment. I will, if 
you say so, admit that international law was on her side in that af- 
fair. I will, if you say so, admit that there was no impropriety, 
no indecency, no affectation in the tiring up of her indignation at 
that in our one vessel the like of which we had suffered from many 
seores of her vessels. And I will too, if you say so, admit that 
her Government had the right to make no account of the certain 
knowledge it had seasonably come into possession of, that our 
Government had not indorsed the acts of Captain Wilkes. Never- 



54 GEKKIT SMITH ON THE KEBELLION. 

theless, after making all these admissions, I must still hold that in 
the Trent affair your country did mine a great and a grievous wrong. 
For without giving a moment's time for negotiation she virtually 
declared war : loading her cannon and lighting the match, and 
giving us but time to fall down upon our knees and beg her par- 
don. And all this too when we had upon our hands a most fearful 
civil war. And all this too when she knew that Captain Wilkes 
did not only not intend any wrong to British interests, but did 
intend to pi*eserve them all most carefully. And all this too when 
she knew that Captain Wilkes's not taking the Trent into port for ad- 
judication was because of his deep desire to save her and the interests 
embarked in her from inconvenience and loss. But you will say 
that Captain Wilkes insulted the British flag. To this I answer 
that there is not the slightest evidence that he intended to. Never- 
theless he did, will be your rejoiner. I know what is the British 
spirit — the British jealousy — in regard to the British flag, and es- 
pecially when it floats over a ship — for Britain is even more of a 
water than land-fowl * I will not say aught in derogation or com- 
plaint of this spirit. But this much I will say — that on the same 
wise and Christian principle that an individual should not return 
an insult with a blow, a nation should not. England regards her- 
self, and I will not say unjustly, as the foremost nation in Christian 
civilization. But how sad that a nation thus advanced should be 
ready to go to war for a point of honor ! Perhaps you will say that 
my own nation would do so. I fear she would. This, however, Avould 
only show that my nation, like yours, has not yet risen into obedi- 
ence to all the laws of Christ. 

No, it is not from the things I have mentioned that I argue 
Britain's lack of sympathy with my greatly afflicted country. I 
argue it from the tone of a large share of the British press ; from 
a class of speeches made in many British meetings and the re- 
sponses to them ; and from the reports of many Americans, Avho, 
in their visits to England, frequently encounter, in both high places 
and low, expressions of very ill feeling toward my country. 

I proceed to ask why it is that so many Britons on both sides 
of the Atlantic sympathize with the rebels. 

First. Is it, because of a jealousy of our vast and mighty Repub- 
lic ? It is, said one of your intelligent citizens to me, as I sat in 
the car by his side, the morning I entered your city : and this 
gentleman justified the jealousy. But I hope he was wrong in as- 
cribing this British sympathy to so unworthy a cause. We certain- 
ly ought to accord to every people their choice of government. 
I am not myself for the " Monroe Doctrine" to the extent that 
most of my countrymen are. If Mexico prefers a monarchical 
government, I would let her have it. And I say this notwith- 
standing my life-long advocacy of the most ultra democratic 
theories of government. I would leave Europe free to persuade 
all republican America to adopt monarchy. On the other hand 
America should be left free to attempt the conversion of mon- 
archical Europe. But in neither case compulsion. 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 55 

Second. Does this British sympathy for the rebels Bpringfrom 
faith in the doctrine of " Secession"? This doctrine grows^out 
of the claim that the States, which compose the lnited States, 
are nations — are sovereignties — notwithstanding they have not 
sovereign power enough to coin a sixpence. How strange if they 
are indeed nations and sovereignties, that England has never 
found it out before ! She, in common with all Europe, has 
gone on maintaining diplomatic relations with our one nation 
at Washington, instead of with a score or two of nations at Bos- 
ton, New-York, Baltimore, New-Orleans, etc. Then if these 
States are all nations and sovereignties, our Constitution must sure- 
ly show so important a fact. But it shoAvs that the people of the 
United States (and by the way, not the States of the United States) 
made, not a plurality of Constitutions for a plurality of nations, 
but one Constitution for one nation. And how absurd is the doc- 
trine that our one nation is the agent of a score or two of nations! 
An agent is held to be inferior to his principals, inasmuch as they 
appoint and commission him. But in this case the agent, if agent 
he be, is immensely superior to his principals : — for instead of 
their watching him and having power over him, he watches them 
and has power over them. For instance, he is to see to it that 
they maintain a republican form of government. And so, too, in- 
stead of his being governed by their laws, they are governed by 
his — and that too even when his are right in the face of theirs. And 
what is still more degrading to these claimed-to-be principals, 
they are required to swear allegiance to him instead of his being 
required to swear allegiance to them. How humiliating it must 
have been to his brethren's sheaves if they had actually to do 
obeisance to the boy Joseph's sheaf ! And how humiliating it 
must have been to the sun and moon and eleven stars if they too 
had actually to make obeisance to him ! But scarcely less humili- 
ating to the numerous States in the United States is their sub- 
mission to the one reputed nation of the United States, if they are 
all nations, and this one reputed nation is not a nation ; or if, in 
other words, they are the principals and this but their agent. The 
doctrine of the right of our States to secede is simply ridiculous. 
That the people, in adopting the Constitution, voted by States 
was a convenience, which could not well be dispensed with. But 
it was a necessity also, inasmuch as in this wise only could the as- 
sent of the people of each State to that loss of State rights and 
State sovei'eignty, which the Constitution called for, be obtained. 

Third. Was it because the Southern States were oppressed by a 
High Tariff, that Britons sympathized with them? But the Mor- 
rill or High Tariff was not enacted until the March after the De- 
cember in which the States began tQ secede. And, by the May, 
one justification for enacting it was that our Government would 
needs its avails in reducing those States. We never had a Tariff 
so welcome to the Southern States as that we had when the Re- 
bellion begun. None of our previous tariffs made so great ap- 



56 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

proaehes to the policy of Free Trade. But no tariff, high or low, 
is an excuse for War. 

Fourth. Was this British sympathy with the rebels caused by the 
growing disposition in my country, as indicated by the triumph of 
Freedom in Kansas, to keep Slavery out of the Territories ? But 
there is nothing in the Constitution to forbid the growth of such 
a disposition : and I would hope that there is nothing in your 
hearts to forbid it. 

Fifth. Was the election of Mr. Lincoln the cause of this sym- 
pathy ? I confess that it was no small trial of Southern patience 
to have a man elected to the Presidency, who was opposed to let- 
ting Slavery go into the Territories. But the Constitution, which 
allowed the election of his Pro-Slavery predecessors, equally al- 
lowed his election. The North did not rebel because of the for- 
mer : and the South should not have rebelled because of the lat- 
ter. Submission to the will of the majority lies at the very founda- 
tion of the Government chosen and constructed by the American 
fathers. 

Sixth. Was this sympathy because of the Northern talk and 
Northern legislation against Slavery? But free speech is ex- 
pressly provided for in our Constitution : and hence the South 
had no more right to rebel when we denounced her system of 
slave-labor than we had when she was stigmatizing our noble 
farmers and mechanics as " mudsills" and " greasy fists." As to 
the legislation against Slavery, the North was always ready to 
have the Supreme Court of the United States pass upon its Con- 
stitutionality. There was legislation at the South in favor of 
Slavery, which the North believed to be unconstitutional. She 
began to send down Commissioners to the South to invite her to 
unite with them in measures for bringing such legislation under 
the review of that Court. But these Commissioners were threat- 
ened with murder and forcibly expelled. 

Seventh. Finally, do Britons sympathize with the Rebellion be- 
cause the Rebels saw that Slavery was unsafe in the old nation and 
under the old Constitution : that in order to maintain, extend, and 
perpetuate it, they must have a new nation with Slavery for its boast- 
ed corner-stone — a new nation whose Constitution would recognize 
property in man as fully and absolutely as it exists in brutes ? Such 
a Constitution they already have ; and such a nation they are trying 
to have. ' And here let me say, that to have such a Constitution and 
such a nation was their sole object in rebelling. As to the elec- 
tion of Lincoln, they were more glad of it than sorry for it, 
since it furnished them, for use among the ignorant and undesign- 
ing, with a pretext for the Rebellion. The Northern Anti-Slavery 
legislation was also, on the whole, welcome to them, since it too 
helped furnish them with this pretext. As to the Northern talk 
against Slavery, they of course knew that they could not get away 
from it by getting out of the nation. I need not adcl that the 
Tariff was not amongst their grievances — for it was already low, 
and had they remained in the nation they could have made it low- 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 0/ 

ei\ I ask again, do Britons sympathize faith the Rebellion bo- 
cause it originated in the motive of serving and advancing Slayery? 
But Britons are opposed to Slavery : — and how therefore can they 
regard with favor an undertaking to "lengthen the cords and 
strengthen the stakes" of Slavery? — an undertaking never before 
known — that is, to create a nation solely for the slaveholder?* 

I have done with asking why Britons sympathize with the Re- 
bellion. I hear of no worthy reason for it. There can be none. 
I will now pass on to mention two grounds on which your sym- 
pathy with my country is claimed, and on neither of which you 
are bound to sympathize with it. 

First. There are writers and orators at the North, who ask the 
world to favor the cause of the North on the ground that she is 
prosecuting the war for the overthrow of Slavery. But she is not 
prosecuting it for that purpose. It is true that slavery has been 
much damaged by the war : — only incidentally, however. It is 
true that Slavery will lose its life in this war. The first gun dis- 
charged at Sumter shot death into Slavery. From that moment 
it has never been possible to save it. On the other hand, it is 
also true that the Government, in carrying on the war, has aimed 
neither to uphold nor overthrow Slavery. It has aimed simply to 
suppress the Rebellion and preserve the nation. This has been 
its only object : and whenever it has touched Slavery it has been 
but to subserve and secure this object. 

I further admit that, whilst there are many persons (shame to 
them !) who would have the Government pervert the war into a 
war for upholding Slavery, there are on the other hand a few 
persons, chiefly Abolitionists of misguided zeal, who would have 
the Rebellion put down only on the condition that Slavery be 
put down with it. Some of them claim that they herein conform 
to God's policy. But I must believe that they misinterpret God. 
My own philosophy teaches, that God would have us put down 
every sin (and where is there a greater sin than this Rebellion ?) 
unconditionally, uncalculatingly, uncompromisingly. My own phi- 
losophy teaches, that we are never to wait, not even an hour nor 

*Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, and an eminent- 
ly intellectual man, is good authority for saying, first, that the North gave the South 
no cause to rebel ; secondly, that to serve and advance the interests of Slavery \\ as 
the object of rebelling. In his speech of November fourteenth, 1860, in the Hall 
of the House of Representatives of Georgia, Mr. Stephens, who as yet opposed the 
Rebellion, said : " What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South 
has been invaded ? What justice has been denied, or what claim founded injustice 
and right has been withheld ? Can any of you to-day name one governmental act 
of wrong deliberately and purposely done by the government at Washington of 
which the South has a right to complain V I challenge the answer." Then in the 
month of March, 1801, and when, notwithstanding his earnest attempts to lay the 
storm, he found himself swept%way by it, and made the second officer in the new- 
nation, he declared in his speech in Savannah, that "the new Constitution had put at 
rest forever all the agitating questions relating to" Slavery ; and that " our new 
Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas" of the old Government 
and " upon the great truth that Slavery is his (the negro's) natural and moral 
condition." 



58 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

a moment, to put down a sin, in the hope that by waiting we shall 
be able to drag down some other sin with it. The sins of earth 
will go down quickest if we try to put down each as soon as we 
can. 

Second. Your sympathy with the cause of my country is also 
claimed by Northern orators and writers on the ground that 
whilst the Southern people are Pro-Slavery the Northern are 
quite extensively Abolitionists. But you should not sympathize 
with us on this ground, for it is a false one. It is true that the 
North is immeasurably less Pro-Slavery than the South: and 
that in the progress and through the teachings of this war, it is 
constantly becoming less and less Pro-Slavery. But it is also 
true that no large proportion of the people of the North afe as 
yet Abolitionist. Our evil inheritance of Slavery from England, 
whilst corrupting to the very core the people of the South, cor- 
rupted very deeply the people of the North also. At the North 
as well as at the South " Abolitionist" is still the most reproach- 
ful, odious* and ' shunned of all names. Not only do the people 
of the South, but very generally the people of the North also, 
refuse to sit af table or in the house of worship by the side of 
the black man. As an outcast Pariah, as an unclean leper, is the 
black man as well at the North as at the South. Very ex- 
tensively at the North is the Bible still held to be for Slavery. 
Bishop Hopkins of your neighboring Vermont so holds : and 
simply because he so holds, the Pro^Slavery party tried a few 
days ago to make him one of the chaplains of Congress. The 
wickedness of running to the blessed Bible for sanction of the 
highest possible crime is still very common at the North. The 
folly of trying to prove by a book that Slavery is right — a folly 
no less than would be that of trying to prove by it that two and 
two make five, or that a circle is a square — is still one of the 
follies of the North. By the way, what could any book, how- 
ever sacred, be worth, which teaches that to be right in which 
there is not one element of right — nay, not one element but what 
is utterly and infernally wrong ? And the practice still obtains 
at the North of according the Pro-Slavery construction to the 
Constitution — to a Constitution which, whilst it contains not one 
line nor one word for Slavery, expressly declares that : " No person 
shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process 
of law." Yes, the people of the North do still very generally accept 
the Pro-Slavery interpretation of the Constitution. And they go 
so far as to reckon themselves very meritorious and magnanimous 
for it. Quite recently in the presence of a vast English audience, 
and by a countryman of mine whose genial spirit, unsurpassed 
genius and wondrous eloquence on an unlimited variety of topics 
are admitted and admired wherever he is known, no little credit 
was claimed for our Northern acquiescence in this Pro-Slavery 
interpretation. Alas, for the morals and religion, which adjust 
themselves to such an interpretation, and are made to harmonize 
with the diabolical wickedness it calls for ! I add in this connec- 



GERPJT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 59 

tion, that so for from there being a law for Slavery in the Consti- 
tution, there can be no law for it either in or out of the Consti- 
tution. Law is for the protection of rights. But Slavery strikes 
down every right. All would he quick to scout the idea of a 
law for murder. But Slavery being- worse than murder, they 
should be quicker to scout the possibility of a law for Slavery. 
I Bay worse than murder. For what enlightened parent would 
not rather see his child in the grave of the murdered than in 
bondage to the slaveholder? It is too late for a civilized nation 
to admit the possibility of the legalization of Slavery. It should 
be held that the nation, which any longer admits it, does thereby 
put itself outside the pale of civilization. But surely I did not 
need to speak to a British audience of the impossibility of legal- 
izing Slavery. How truthfully, eloquently, and grandly your own 
Brougham said : " Tell me not of rights. Talk not of the pro- 
perty of the planter in his slaves. I deny the rights. I ac- 
knowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our 
commonnature rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made 
to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same 
that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such 
a claim. There is a law above all the enactments of human 
codes. It is the law written by the finger of God upon the heart 
of man : and by that law unchangeable and eternal while men 
despise fraud and loathe rapine and abhor blood they shall reject 
with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy that man 

CAN HOLD PROPERTY IN MAN." 

I have now asked on what grounds it is that Britons sympa- 
thize with the greatest and guiltiest Rebellion the world ever 
knew : — a Rebellion the sole grievance for which was that there 
was not scope enough for Slavery. And I have now disclaimed 
two grounds for your sympathy with my country in her resistance 
to this Rebellion. The" way then is open for me to state the only 
ground on which I claim the world's sympathy with my country 
in this resistance. This only ground is the sacredness of 
nationality. An eminent British statesman has, within the 
last year, declared that " the South is fighting for independence and 
the North for empire." The North was offended at the declara- 
tion. But it should not have been. Your statesman is right. 
For one I readily accepted his statement. The South is fighting 
for independence — an independence, however, which she has no 
right to. The North is fighting for empire : and it is not only a 
lawful empire but one which she is under the highest obligations 
to fight for. In a twofold sense is it empire for which she lights — 
since she is intent both on the restoration of all the national 
boundaries and on the restoration of the government commen- 
surate with all those boundaries. I repeat it, the only ground on 
which I claim the world's sympathy with my suffering country is 
the sacredness of nationality. The family relation is sacred, and 
must not be violated. A family may of its own accord break up and 
scatter. But this must not be forced upon it. Nationality is also 



60 GERRIT SMITH OX THE REBELLION. 

inviolable. Nations may agree with each other to change their 
boundaries. But the change must not be forced upon them. All 
families must leave each family to live : and all nations must leave 
each nation to live. The family and the nation — or, as I might 
say, the literal and the national family — are the two institutions of 
earth whose permanence all families in the one case and all nations 
in the other should foster and rejoice in. These institutions are' 
too precious to be violated or neglected. Far too large a share of 
human happiness and human hopes is indissolubly connected with 
them to allow such violation or neglect. For ninety years the 
Poles have been without a nation. What arithmetic can compute 
their sufferings during these ninety years ! As I was gazing, the 
other day, upon the picture of the beautiful and sublime face of 
an eminent Polish exile, I fancied that the sorrows of a whole 
nation were expressed in that one face of utter sadness. How 
murderous was the cruelty, which robbed the Poles of nationality ! 
How far worse than every other form of ophanage was that to 
which it reduced them ! And they still suffer as in the freshness 
of their suffering. Italy too still bleeds under her dismember- 
ment. And would you, or any of you, in order to gratify a hand- 
ful of slaveholders, who are compelling their poor, ignorant, and 
know-not-what-they-do neighbors to fight for Slavery — and would 
you, I say, for this miserable and guilty purpose, have the hearts 
of my countrymen also wrung with the agonies of a broken-up 
nation — of a nation, whose physical features show that her North 
and her South, whatever you may say of her East and West, can 
never be parted from each other but by a war upon nature as well 
as upon nationality ? Oh! when will nations cease from the meanness 
and wickedness of wronging each other ? How mean and wicked 
to fall upon the peace and rights of a family ! Immeasurably 
more so to fall upon the peace and rights of a nation. Nations 
must cease to be jealous of each other. They must stand. by 
each other, and never sympathize with an assault upon nationality, 
unless it be in that rare case where the assault is for the redress of 
wrongs so flagrant and unendurable, that nothing can be sacred 
enough to stand in -the way of their redress. And then every 
nation should remember, that it behooves her, for her own safety, 
to be true to other nations. If England shall, in this hour of my 
country's calamity, go to the side of my country's enemies, is 
there not great danger that she will thereby provoke my country 
to go to the side of England's enemies when England shall in her 
turn be overtaken by the like calamity ? 

If I know myself, I would deeply sympathize with England, 
should a part of her Counties take up arms to dismember her. 
I would call it right in that case to fight for " empire" : and in- 
deed I know no nation that would in such case fight more earnest- 
ly for it. Wouldn't you call it right ? Nay, wouldn't even 
the eminent statesman, who reproached my country with fighting 
for " empire," call it right for England, if in the circumstances of 
my country, to fight for " empire" ? But if England would be en- 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 61 

titled to sympathy in her endeavors to reduce to loyalty her revolt- 
ing Counties, why is not my country entitled to it in her struggle 
with revolting States? It is true that the States, which make up 
my nation, are more important political divisions than the Counties 
of England — for they are larger, have more administrative power, 
and have legislative power also. Nevertheless an American 
State no more than an English County is a nation; and has no 
more right than an English County to set up for itself. 

Britain, France, America, and all the nations of the earth should 
he faithful to each other, and should spare their sympathies for ob- 
jects worthier than piracies and slaveholding ambition and slave- 
holding greed. The Rebellion in my country is nothing more nor 
less than Slavery in arms. The monster had for many years 
tried to accomplish his infernal objects through the ballot-box and 
through all sorts of intrigue and corruption. Failing of entire 
success by these means, he took up arms. But, thank God, the 
Rebellion is last going down. Slavery, being identical with it, of 
course goes down with it. The ending of the Rebellion will ne- 
cessarily be the ending of Slavery. Not one shred of Slavery 
will survive the utter extinction of the Rebellion. And let none 
fear that it will be anywhere reestablished. The people, who 
.have once thrown off Slavery, will never recall it. They will 
have no desire to exchange the blessings of Liberty for the curse 
of Slavery. Your West-India planters continued, after the Decree 
of Emancipation, to ask for more money and more favors : but 
none of them wanted the restoration of Slavery. They had all 
had enough of that. 

Yes, its self-inflicted wound is mortal, and American Slavery must 
soon die. When it is dead, then, as I trust, will my countrymen, 
North and South, East and West, having through this war worked 
out in tears and blood the heavy and Heaven-appointed penalty of 
their crimes against the black man, penitently and unitedly engage 
in redressing his matchless wrongs, healing the deep gashes in his 
spirit, and opening the way wide and generous for his bodily, 
mental and moral improvement. If this shall come to pass, then 
will a nation grow up in my land grander and more beautiful than 
any other nation. This will not be because we are better than 
other people — for we are not. It will be because nature has dealt 
more bountifully with us than with any other land. And then 
will my nation, because it shall have become just to its own peo- 
ple of all classes, conditions, and complexions, be relied on, the 
earth over, to be just to all nations. For, with the change of 
but one word, we can say to a nation with all the confidence and 
emphasis with which your greatest of all poets said to an indi- 
vidual : 

" To thine own self be true : 
And it must follow, as the daj the night, 
Thou canst not then be false to any nation." 



ON THE COUNTRY. 

LETTER TO HON. D. C. LITTLEJOHN 



Peterboro, January 14th, 1864. 
Hon. Mr. Littlejohn, M. C. : 

Dear Sir : In common with your other constituents, I lament 
your sickness. May you soon regain your health, and the country 
soon regain your services ! This is emphatically a time when the 
country needs to have every one of her true and intelligent friends 
at his post. 

July 22d, 1861, the House of Representatives adopted with but 
two dissenting voices, Mr. Crittenden's Resolution, a part of 
which is that : " This war is waged but to defend and maintain the 
supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all 
the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired ; 
and that as soon as those objects are accomplished the war ought 
to cease." 

This resolution is in my judgment the greatest and most per- 
nicious of all our mistakes in carrying on the war. From the day 
of its passage it has never ceased to furnish the Seymours and other 
enemies of the Administration with their most plausible and effec- 
tive arguments against the Administration, and with their might- 
iest influences to obstruct and pervert the war. The resolution 
declares war for the Constitution and. Union — which it should not 
have done ; and it fails to declare war against the rebels — which 
alone it should have done. No wonder that with so bad a begin- 
ning the nation has not even yet carried on an unconditional war 
against them ! — and no wonder therefore that the war has been so 
protracted ! Should a portion of her people revolt, England would 
feel that here was something to declare war against. She would 
find no time and feel no disposition to declare war for any thing — 
not even for her chosen form of government — no, nor even for her 
existence. She would address herself to the one work of subduing 
the revolt, cost however much it might to what she most cherish- 
ed. She would go forward to conquer or perish. Very precious, 
indeed, the interests she would leave behind her. But she would 
no more suffer them to interfere with the absorbing object before 
her than would Cortes have suffered his ships to tempt his little 



GERRIT SMITn OX THE REBELLION. 63 

army with the possibilities of a safe retreat. lie burnt liis ships; 
and she would call for no stipulations in behalf of those interests. 
To save our Constitution and Union has been our chief object 
(real and pretended) in this war. Whereas our sole object in it 
should have been to crush the Rebellion — and this too at what- 
ever needful expense even to the Constitution or the Union. In 
saying this, I surely do not expose myself to the charge of under- 
valuing either Constitution or Union. For who has written and 
spoken more than I have for the Constitution, just as it is? — and 
who has accepted more constantly and cordially all the terms of 
the Union ? 

A wise and firm father resolves, imcalculatingly and uncondi- 
tionally, to put down his rebellious child. If reminded that his 
family may thereby be broken up, his reply is, that, family or no 
family, the young rebel shall go down. So too the brave house- 
hold whom the burglar awakes, will, if told by him to see to 
their safety, prefer, at whatever hazard to their safety, to see 
to his capture. And why a nation act upon a different prin- 
ciple ? Xo other nation, in the circumstances of ours, ever did. 
No other nation, ancient or modern, ever furnished a parallel at 
this point to the conduct of our own. A Rebellion, the most gi- 
gantic the world ever saw — the most guilty too, since its only real 
plea was that under the Constitution there were not sufficient scope 
and provision for the safety, extension, and perpetuity of Slavery — 
broke out against us. Our one and unconditional work was to 
put it down. Xo part of this work was it to save Constitution, 
Union, or Xation. Nay, if, in our struggle to put it down, all these 
shall perish, their never-to-perish monument would be worth in- 
. finitely more to the glory of God and the good of man, than could 
their salvation if achieved by compromise or indirection. Very 
sacred is nationality. But our sense of its sacredness is shown far 
less in trying to save a nation than in trying to punish, though at 
whatever hazard to the nation, the miscreants, who are at work to 
destroy it. 

And now whence comes it that our nation has, at this point, be- 
haved so unlike every other nation ? Whence comes it that when 
heaven and earth bade it crush the Rebellion, and at whatever cost 
and without any condition or calculation- — whence comes it, I ask, 
that it turned away from the one and only work it had to do 
to listen to the traitorous cry : " Save the Constitution : Save the 
Union !" It comes, I reply, from the simple fact that, from the 
first, the American people have been artfully, industriously, con- 
stantly trained to worship the Constitution and the Union. And 
what is it that has so successfully called for this training? It is 
Slavery. By day and by night Slavery has worked to make the 
American people worshipers of the Constitution and the Union — 
urging, all the time, its lying claim that the Constitution and the 
Union were made to uphold, extend, and perpetuate Slavery. Only 
a short and entirely natural step was it to their becoming worship- 
ers of Slavery itself. And, because they took that step, the 



64 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

American people have not yet been able to stand up to a square 
fight against the Rebellion. For the Rebellion is simply Slavery 
in arms ; and to their deluded minds Slavery, whether armed or un- 
armed, being the very pet and cosset of the Constitution and 
Union, is as much to be cherished and protected as the Con- 
stitution and Union. The enemy paralyzed the Egyptians when 
he succeeded in placing between them and himself on the battle- 
field their sacred animals. And why our people could not strike 
promply and unreservedly at the Rebellion, was simply because 
sacred Slavery stood between it and them. You well remember that 
the first concern of our early Commanders in this war was to pro- 
vide for the safety of Slavery. Nothing had been seen more insane 
or ridiculous since the days when an Egyptian army made more 
account of saving the worshiped cat or crocodile than of conquer- 
ing the enemy. 

Let me refer to some of the evil results of this Congressional Re- 
solution of July 22d, 1861, which, as its first and unquoted part* 
shows, was intended to be a resolution of safety to Slavery instead 
of destruction to the Rebellion. It estops Congress from com- 
plaining of the over-zealous and one-idea Abolitionist, who with- 
holds his hand from the work of putting down the Rebellion un- 
conditionally. It licenses him to substitute for that work the up- 
holding of the Constitution and Union. Moreover, as it virtually 
licenses him to take his own Abolition way for upholding them, it 
must not complain if that shall prove an xmwise and even wild way. 
It also estops Congress from complaining of the Pro-Slavery Dem- 
ocrats for their incessant clogging of the wheels of war with 
their affected cautions for the safety of the Constitution and the 
Union. For it has itself supplanted the only true issue — the sole 
and stern issue of the nation with the Rebellion — by a paramount 
concern for the Constitution and the Union. It is in the name of 
this very concern that the Seymours and Woods are at work to 
consummate the ruin of our Republic, and to build up a slave- 
holding oligarchy which will be grateful to all, North as well as 
South, who, like themselves, love the distinctions of Aristocracy and 
hate the level of Democracy. 

Would that Congress had not taken a ground, which allows cer- 
tain men to pretend to be against the rebels, when they are not! 
Would that Congress had declared war against the rebels, and so 
compelled these certain men to stand forth openly for or against 
the war ! Nay, would that Congress might now, even at this late 
day, summon the courage to make a clean, unconditional, uncom- 
promising declaration of war — a declaration which shall be for 
nothing ; and which shall be against the rebels, and against noth- 
ing else. 

V The Reconstruction of the Government !" For one I am sorry 
that the public mind should be prematurely occupied with the sub- 
ject. From the day when the Rebellion began, the nation should 
have been concerned about nothing else than to put it down ; and 
I add, that until it is put down the nation should be concerned 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 65 

about .nothing else than to put it down. "We are not so strong and 
so entirely certain of success that we can afford to be divided 
amongst ourselves by premature issues. Moreover, we shall not 
know what will be our duty to the conquered South until we shall 
have conquered her, and seen in what temper the conquest leaves 
her. As we advance into the enemy's territory, let it be subjected 
to a military or other temporary government ; and when, if ever, 
the whole territory shall be ours, then let the terms of a Treaty of 
Peace, and not a mere Proclamation, say whether the governments 
and constitutions of that territory shall be as they were before, or 
shall be so modified as to meet any reasonable demands for their 
modification. That the Treaty of Peace will have no right to 
modify them is absurd. That the Constitution will stand in the 
way of it is ridiculous. When half a nation arms itself against the 
other half, and throws off the common Constitution, it is for that 
other half, if victorious, to choose whether it w r ill or will not treat 
the conquered rebels according to the Constitution. It may, at its 
own option, treat them as rebels, or as it would foreign enemies. 
In such circumstances it is bound by no code nor Constitution. It 
is a law unto itself; and in the light of that law it is to decide what 
the national Avelfare calls for. I am free to say that I would have 
the Treaty revive all the conquered States, and all those rights 
to which they were formerly entitled under the Constitution. I 
say it, because I w r ould that they might be found worthy of it. 
But to repose such confidence in those States, were they still im- 
penitent and revengeful, and waiting and longing for another op- 
portunity to strike at the heart of the nation, would be madness ; 
and would be an immeasurable wrong as well toward the conquered 
as toward the conquerors. The conquered States will be entitled 
to nothing in virtue of their rights under their former relations. 
What they have done to break up these relations, (the North is 
entirely innocent of any thing to this end,) has worked the forfeit- 
ure of all those rights. In the name, however, of wisdom as well 
as humanity, let the Treaty accord to them all that it would be 
safe for them and for us to have accorded. Let it restore to them 
gladly and lovingly, all the rights of sister States, provided only 
that, in a sound view of the circumstances, prudence shall not for- 
bid so entire a restoration. 

I expressed ray preference for a Treaty of Peace. It was proper 
that Washington should proclaim on what terms a local insurrec- 
tion in Pennsylvania might be pacified and ended. But I would 
not leave it even to a Washington to decide on what terms the two 
halves of a mighty nation should make peace with each other. 

The Proclamations ! Our President is both a strong and an 
honest man. Moreover, his patriotic heart is firmly set on subduing 
the Rebellion. Nevertheless, even he, as well as other men, may 
fall into errors. I do not complain that his Proclamation of Free- 
dom did not cover all the slaves. It covered as many as in his con- 
victions the exigencies of war allowed him to declare free ; and ho 
5 



66 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

certainly had no moral right to extend his Proclamation beyond 
these convictions. In his civil capacity he conld not liberate a 
single slave ; and in his military capacity he could liberate only so 
many as there was a military necessity for liberating. What I do 
complain of is his recognition of the right of the Supreme Court to 
pass upon that Proclamation. This Court lias not the right to say 
whether it is or is not valid and operative ; and I would that Con- 
gress might protest unanimously and most solemnly against the 
President's recognition of it. Let this Court, if it please, take into 
its hands whatever Proclamations the President may make in his 
civil capacity. But in regard to all those which he puts forth as 
Head of the Army, I would say to it : " Hands oft*!" It is true 
that it ia the Constitution, of which this Court is the acknowledged 
interpreter, which makes the President the Head of the Army. 
But it is also true that it is the LAW OF WAR and not the Con- 
stitution, which tells him what he may do in that capacity. What 
if among his military orders should be one to poison the springs 
and wells and food in the enemy's territory ! — would our country 
submit to it, in case the Supreme Court should sanction it ? None 
the less because of that sanction would our whole country along with 
the whole civilized world rise up against the barbarous order. 
Surely, surely this Court needs no encouragement to enlarge its 
powers. The Dred Scott case is of itself sufficient to prove that 
its tendency is to set no limits to those powers. 

Hundreds of thousands are petitioning Congress to abolish what 
remains of American Slavery. The " Confiscation and Emancipa- 
tion Bill" left comparatively little of it ; and then came the Presi- 
dent's Proclamation to make even that little less. I hope Congress 
will grant the petition. There are some persons who hold that 
Congress can, as a civil measure, enact the abolition of Slavery — 
and this, too, without providing any indemnity. There are also 
some who hold that there can be no legal Slavery under a Constitu- 
tion which requires " a republican form of government " in all the 
States, and also requires that; " no person shall be deprived of 
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." And there 
are some persons of such extreme views as to hold that Slavery, 
being the matchless crime against God and man, can no more than 
murder itself, be legalized by any Constitution, or embodied in any 
real law. But I could wish that Congress might avoid all these 
questions and abolish Slavery as a war measure, and accompany 
the abolition with a suitable indemnity to loyal slaveholders. 

I notice that the plans for military canals are already coming 
before Congress, and that an objection to building the canal around 
Niagara Falls is much urged. It is a taking one, inasmuch as it 
appeals to local interests and individual selfishness. This objection 
is, that Western produce, when once afloat on Lake Ontario, will 
descend the St. Lawrence, and thus be lost to our cities. And is 
this an objection? Most certainly, the race of bad logicians is not 
yet extinct. In the first place, the Government does not propose 
to build these canals for commerce, but for military protection and 



GERIUT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 67 

advantage. And in the next place, if the Niagara Canal shall give 
to the immense agricultural West a better market on the St. Law- 
rence than it can have in Boston, New-York, or Philadelphia, then 
ought the whole nation to rejoice in the prospect of the building of 
that Canal. To get better prices for its produce is of infinitely 
greater importance to our country than to keep undiminished a few 
branches of trade in a few of its cities. Because I have some land 
in your Oswego, I naturally desire to have a share of the vessels 
laden with Western produce turn into that city, and so benefit 
her as well as Boston and New-York. But it would be very sel- 
fish and mean in me to desire this if the produce can find a better 
market on the St. Lawrence. Bather should I say, let Oswego be 
deserted ; and let Montreal outgrow New- York, if she can do so 
by attracting the produce and increasing the wealth of our farm- 
ers. But I apprehend that the great West will be sadly disap- 
pointed, if she expects by means of the Niagara Canal to have a 
better market on the St. Lawrence, which for half the year is 
closed with ice, than she can have elsewhere. If this is her ex- 
pectation from that Canal, then so far she is unwise in calling 
for the building of it. The Canal will be a*h important military 
work ; but it will bring comparatively little to the markets of 
Canada. 

And I also notice, that there is a movement in Congress to ter- 
minate the Reciprocity Treaty — that Treaty which, you remember, 
I worked so hard for when I was a Member of Congress. I hope 
that my country will not be guilty of the illiberality and unsound 
political economy of refusing to exchange natural productions with 
any country. The complaint is, that Canada sells too much to us. 
But if she is profited by selling to us, so are we by buying of her. 
If the lumberman in Maine can not get as much for his lumber 
under the " Reciprocity Treaty," there is nevertheless a full equiv- 
alent in the fact that the builder in Ohio buys his Canada lumber 
far cheaper because of that Treaty. If it is a gain to sell dear, so 
it is also a gain to buy cheap. We have now free access to the 
vast and rich forests of Canada. What a folly to cut ourselves off 
from this advantage for the miserable reason that Canada enjoys 
a corresponding advantage ! — that whilst we reap the profit of 
buying her lumber, she reaps the profit of selling it to us ! But it 
is held that the price of our wheat, as well as of our lumber, is re- 
duced by this Canada competition. Can it, however, make any 
material difference to our farmers, whether the Canada wheat goes 
to Liverpool by the St. Lawrence or by New-York and Boston ? 
Both our country and Canada grow a surplus of wheat ; and 
hence, in the case of both, the price is regulated by the foreign 
market. Canada wheat will come into competition with ours, 
whether we do or do not continue to enjoy the advantage of trans- 
porting it across our country. Why then should we surrender 
this advantage ? And it is also held that free Canada coal cheap- 
ens the price of ours. The more the better, declare reason and 



68 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

humanity ! And in response to this declaration, all the people, in- 
cluding especially the shivering poor, cry : "Amen!" 

I close with inquiring who they are that clamor for Tariffs and 
the termination of the " Reciprocity Treaty "? They are few else 
than the comparative handful, who desire higher prices for what 
they have to sell. The masses, and especially the poor who make 
up so large a share of the masses, desire low prices. In, then, 
their name and behalf let us favor, not the policy which makes 
dear, but that which makes cheap, the necessaries of life! 

Your friend, Geekit Smith. 



LETTER TO HON. PRESTON KING. 



Peteeboro, J ur.iiary 20th, 1864. 
Hon. Preston King : 

Dear Sir: It was your and my privilege to meet, a day or two 
since, with a number of intelligent gentlemen, and to exchange 
views with them. It was gratifying to find them all so faithful to 
the Constitution, the Union, and the country, and therefore so in- 
tent on crushing the Rebellion. 

I was, however, not a little surprised and sorry to find that they 
were, generally, very sensitive in regard to criticisms on the Gov- 
ernment. For instance, although they were ready to say that it 
is our right to prosecute the war as well under the Law of War 
as under the Constitution, they, nevertheless, shrunk from saying 
that nothing in the Constitution on attainder, or on any thing else, 
should be plead in mitigation of the penalties incurred by the 
rebels. Why did they shrink from it ? Simply because the Presi- 
dent, whose few mistakes are as nothing compared with his good 
and grand deeds, had put in such a plea, and Congress had ac- 
cepted it. But it never should have been put in nor accepted. 
How false, even ludicrously false, our position in consequence of 
this misstep of the Government ! We take away his property 
from the armed rebel. We want to shoot him. But if we do 
shoot him, the property passes away from us ! And thus have we 
tempted ourselves to spare him! The simple truth is, that we 
have not only all, but more than all, the rights of war against the 
rebels that we have against a foreign enemy. For the Constitution, 
which the rebels have flung away, but which we still hold over 
them, arms us with punishments beyond those provided for by the 
International Code of War. 

Still more did these gentlemen shrink from saying that it is 
hazardous to the welfare of the masses, and fearfully violative of 
the great and sacred majority principle, on which rests Republican 
Government, to authorize a comparative handful to mould, and im- 
pose upon a State, a permanent form of government. The Presi- 
dent, however, had authorized it, and hence, in the esteem of those 
gentlemen, the measure was put beyond criticism. I say nothing 
against providing, in whatever way, a tcmporeiry government, to 
meet the exigencies of Avar. But peace alone can afford the com- 
posure and advantages which are necessary to devise and ma- 
ture % permanent form of government. Let me here add, that the 
Constitution, with its every line and letter, should be dear to us 
all. But the majority principle is its very soul ; and hence, to vio- 
late i^ is to strike at the existence of the Constitution. One effect 
of authorizing this little minority to construct a permanent form 



70 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 



of government will be to shut out the black man from the ballot- 
box. But as freedom and arm£ are to be granted to him, there 
will be neither peace nor safety in the land until the right of suf- 
frage is also granted to him. 

I could not fail to see that, on the occasion referred to, I made 
myself quite offensive by calling in question the infallibility of the 
Government. My faithfulness to it was construed into unfaithful- 
ness to it. My exception to a couple of its measures was scarcely 
distinguishable from the vulgar attacks upon it. But there should 
be great patience with the proved friend of his Government when 
he finds fault with it. For, at the most, it is but misjudgments of 
which he is guilty. Moreover, his misjudgments may, after all, 
turn out to be sound judgments. Multitudes, once hostile to my 
life-long principles, I have lived to see become identified with 
them. And ere they are aware, those who dissent from my pre- 
sent positions, may have come round to them. By the way, the 
popular notion that our able and upright Administration is weak- 
ened by whatever criticisms upon its measures, is far from true. 
To such of these criticisms as are made in the spirit of candor and 
patriotism it is ever ready to listen, and, therefore, is it enlight- 
ened and strengthened by whatever of wisdom there may be in 
them. 

The President, when admitting, in regard to some of his meas- 
ures, that they are not final and unalterable, virtually invites his 
fellow-citizens to suggest changes in them. He was wrong in re- 
ferring it to the Supreme Court instead of the Law of War to de- 
cide whether Proclamations, which he had issued as Head of the 
Army, and therefore under the Law of War, are valid or invalid : — 
and let us be honest and courageous enough to say so. Again, he 
was wrong in holding that certain penalties, which we can inflict 
under the Law of War, must, of necessity, be reduced by the 
Constitution : — and at this point also let us deal faithfully with him. 

Our Administration is indeed badly off, if, whilst on the one 
hand its enemies are assailing it for the purpose of destroying it, 
its friends, on the other, may not criticise it for the sake of help- 
ing it. 

One thing more. We should adjourn to the latest possible day 
all causes and occasions of division amongst ourselves. Divisions 
in the presence of our enemy, who is mighty because he is despe- 
rate, are dangerous to the last degree. Now, the tendency of 
naming persons for the Presidency is to produce these divisions. 
Hence, there should be no nominations of President before mid- 
summer, by which time, the Rebellion being ended, such divisions 
would be harmless. 

Party in time of Peace is right. But in time of War it is wrong — 
in effect, treasonably wrong. I hoped that the Republicans had 
given up Party. But in the interview to which I referred at the 
beginning of this letter, I felt that perhaps they had not. 
With great regard, your friend, 

Gerrit Smith. 






^^j/k^^JIff^ 



^ 



L^^-M^ 




c^ 






GERRIT SMITH 



REBELLION 



VOLUME II. 



SPEECHES AID LETTERS 



GERRIT SMITH 



(FROM J.AJNnT.AJR,Y, 1864, TO J^AJSTTJ-A-RY, I860) 



REBELLION 



VOLUME II. 



$tfo-gorft: 

AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 

121 NASSAU STREET. 



1865. 



ON THE CONSTITUTION. 



War goes beyond Constitutional Restrictions. 

Down with the Rebellion at Whatever Cost to the Constitution. 

"The Body is more than Raiment!" The Country is more than the Constitution. 

Time now for nothing but to Crush the Rebellion. 



To My Neighbors : 

" Damn the Constitution !" said one in the hearing of myself 
and several others. I had always disliked profanity : and I had 
always honored the Constitution — welcoming every part of it. 
Nevertheless this exclamation was music in my ears. Why was 
it ? It was because of the connection and spirit in which it burst 
from the speaker. He was arguing with rapid and fervid elo- 
quence that the Government should ply every possible means for 
the speediest crushing of the rebellion — when a listening Conserva- 
tive threw in the qualification : " But all according to the Con- 
stitution !" No wonder that the speaker could not brook this 
interruption. No wonder that an oath should leap forth to attest 
the indignation of his patriotic soul. It was not contempt for the 
Constitution, but displeasure at the thrusting of it in his way, 
which prompted the profanity. Had it been the Bible itself, that 
was thus impertinently cited, an oath might still have been the 
consequence. 

In a past century a New-England Puritan, in order to reconcile 
his black boy to the periodical whippings he gave him, said: "I 
whip you for the good of your soul." To which the suiferer very 
naturally replied : " I wish I had n't a soul !" Often during this 
War has the excessively tender and untimely care for the Consti- 
tution tempted me to wish that we had n't a Constitution. Thus 
was I tempted when, July 22, 1861, the House of Representatives, 
instead of manfully resolving that the War was for putting down 
the Rebellion and for nothing else, meanly resolved that it was 
for maintaining the supremacy of the Constitution. Thus was I 
tempted when Congress, a year or two ago, was ridiculously em- 
ployed in looking into the Constitution to learn how far it might 
confiscate the possessions of the millions who were striking at 
the life of the nation. I notice that, now again, Congress is, in 
this same connection, twattling about the Constitution. Thus was 



4 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION". 

I tempted when the President left it to the Judges, or, in other 
words, to the Constitution, to say whether Proclamations, which 
he had issued as Head of the Army, should be allowed to stand. 
Unhappiest and most contemptible of all nations are we, if whilst 
every other nation can cany on Avar with all the latitude of the 
law of war — of the law of necessity and of self-preservation, we 
are to be " cabined, cribbed, confined " by a mere paper. Infinitely 
better that we had no Constitution than that we should have one, 
which is allowed to fetter our freedom and restrict our choice of 
means in time of war. 

By the way, the most cheering instance of resistance to this 
practice of supplanting the law of war with the Constitution is 
the recent disclaimer of the Supreme Court, in Yallandigham's 
case, of authority to review the proceedings of a military com- 
mission. 

Never yet have we carried on an unconditional and square fight 
with the rebels : and never can we until we shall have the politi- 
cal and moral courage to resent and rise above the endeavors of 
demagogues and sympathizers with the rebels to embarrass our 
conduct of the war by these impertinent constitutional questions. 
But these questions are not the only hinderance in the way of the 
only proper mode of warfare. Another and not less serious hin- 
derance has sprung up in the untimely agitation of the question: 
" Who shall be the next President ?" It is fearful to think how 
mighty are the electioneering influences, which will now be set at 
work by office-holders, office-seekers, army contractors, and many 
other classes. It is fearful to think how wide-spread and deep a con- 
cern there will be to conduct the War, not so as to end the rebel- 
lion and save the country, but so as to promote party and individ- 
ual interests. It is fearful to think of the possible extent and char- 
acter of the divisions that may now be wrought amongst ourselves 
-^divisions that may do more than the enemy can do to destroy our 
beloved country. Who shall be the next President, should not have 
been spoken of before midsummer. The New-York Independent 
says it should only have been thought of. But it should not even 
have been thought of before that time. In the judgment of this 
journal, to be thinking from this early day of the Presidential 
Election — "to be prudently considering it" — to "ponder "it — 
would be the people's best preparation for acting wisely in it. 
But their unspeakably better preparation would be to forget the 
whole subject for the coming four or five months, and to be during 
all that time united as one man in wiping out the last remains of 
the accursed Rebellion. Such a perfect union for such a right- 
eous end would be their best possible education for selecting none 
but a fit man for the Presidency. 

Quite a natural fruit of this premature agitation of the Presi- 
dential question is it, that there are already on the one hand Union 
men who are slandering and vilifying Abraham Lincoln, and on 
the other hand Union men who will not tolerate even the most 
generous and friendly criticism on any of his views and measures. 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 5 

And still another hinderance lias been thrown in our way. The 
proposition to amend the Constitution tends to produce divisions 
amongst ourselves, and to divert us from that one work which 

should absorb us — the work of crushing the Rebellion. It is said 
that tor I lie safety of posterity and to prevent the recurrence of 
the Rebellion we must have a constitutional prohibition of Slave- 
ry. I reply that we can not afford to attend to posterity now — 
that our own case needs all our present attention. It will be time 
enough to amend the Constitution after we shall have ended the 
Rebellion. The leisure which peace affords, is necessary to devise 
and adopt amendments of that precious paper. I do not object 
to the abolishing of Slavery. No sooner had slavery fired at 
Sumter, than emancipation should have fired at slavery. And 
this, too, Constitution or no Constitution for it. It was our right, 
because our necessity, to kill that which aimed to kill the nation. 
At no time since the War began should Congress have delayed to 
abolish by force of its war power every remnant of slavery : — 
dealing generously at the same time with loyal slaveholders. 

Moreover, as to guarding posterity from slavery, and therefore 
from a war for slavery, I would say, that the land once cleared of 
it, slavery will never again be set up in it. Slavery is an abomina- 
tion which the people, wdio have once got rid of it, are never dis- 
posed to recall. It is a disease, which no people take a second 
time. The French learned this lesson in their mad attempt to re- 
enslave the Haytiens. When, a few years ago, Spain grasped San 
Domingo, she promised the Dominicans not to introduce slavery. 
The promise was superfluous. The Dominicans will take care 
to protect themselves from slavery and from Spain also. Consti- 
tutional provisions against slavery will not avail to keep out slav- 
ery from the Southern States : but the freedom and the arms we 
are giving to their slaves will. Where a people want slavery, 
they will have it, whatever the Constitution. Our Constitution is 
against slavery. But the people w r anted slavery. To say the 
least, they felt interested in consenting to it. Hence they fell in 
with the pro-slavery interpretation of the Constitution. Good 
men fell in with it because it was the prevailing interpretation. I 
said that our Constitution is against slavery. Certainly it is : — 
for it says, "Xo person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or prop- 
erty without due process of law :" and " No State shall pass any 
bill of attainder." But slavery is the most emphatic and abomin- 
able attainder. And it says too : "The United States shall guar- 
antee to every State in the Union a Republican form of govern- 
ment." Has South-Carolina, where a handful of tyrants own 
three fifths of all the people, a Hejniblican form of government? 
Surely we can not admit it without being ashamed that our nation 
has a Republican name. 

I close with the remark, that now is not the time cither to im- 
prove the Constitution or to be solicitous to save it ; that now is 
not the time, much as they arc needed, to be building roads to the 
Pacific, or indeed to be making any expenditures or embarking in 



6 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

any projects, whose results will not be early enough to help us 
in this War ; and that not only now is not the time for President- 
making but not the time to maintain the Democratic party, nor 
to revive the Republican party and seek thereby to harness to a 
platform built four years ago and in far other circumstances a 
nation which is solving, through seas of tears and blood, the ques- 
tion of her life or death. I thought that the Republican party 
was disbanded. The assurances that it was — were they mistaken 
or deceitful '? Tens of thousands of men, not Republicans, have 
worked with Republicans to put down the Rebellion. But they 
can not turn away from that work to any other : — nor can they 
consent to couple with it the building up of the Republican or 
any other party. 

Peterboko, February 24, 1864. 



ON THE FORT PILLOW AND PLYMOUTH MASSACRES. 



The Immediate Criminals not always the only Criminals. 

The Creators of a Wicked Public Sentiment responsible for its Fruits. 

Patriotism, and not Party Politics, our Present Need. 

No Taxes too heavy, if needed to Put Down the Rebellion. 



The whole civilized world will be startled and horrified by this 
slaughter of probably not less than five or six hundred persons. 
The excuse in the case of a part of the slaughtered is, that they 
were traitorous citizens of the Confederacy : in the case of another 
part, that they were whites fighting by the side of blacks : in the 
case of the remainder, including women and even children, that 
they were blacks. That these were blacks, was cause enough why, 
though numbering three or four hundred, they should be murder- 
ed — murdered in utter contempt of all the sacred rights of pri- 
soners of war. It is of the crime against these, I would now speak. 

Who are to be held amenable for this crime ? The rebels. Yes, 
but not the rebels only. The authorship of this crime, so match- 
less in its worst features, is very comprehensive. The responsibili- 
ty for it is wider than our nation. England shares in the author- 
ship and responsibility, because it was she who planted slavery in 
America, and because it is slavery out of which this crime has 
come. Our own nation, however, is the far guiltier one. The guilt 
of this crime is upon all her people who have contributed to that 
public sentiment, which releases white men from respecting the 
rights of black men. Our highest Court says that this Satanic sen- 
timent prevailed in the early existence of our nation. Certain it 
is, that it has prevailed in all the later periods of that existence. 
"Who are they who have contributed to generate it ? All who have 
held that blacks are unfit to sit by the side of whites in the church, 
the school, the car and at the table. All who have been in favor 
of making his complexion shut out a black man from the ballot- 
box. All who have been for making a man's title to any of the 
rights of manhood turn on the color of the skin in which his 
Maker has chosen to wrap him. All, in short, who have hated or 
despised the black man. 

Even President Lincoln, whom God now blesses and will yet more 
bless for the much he has done for his black brethren, is not entire- 



8 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

ly innnocent of the Fort Pillow and Plymouth massacres. Had 
his plan of "Reconstruction" recognized the right of the black 
men to vote, it would thereby have contributed to lift them up 
above outrage, instead of contributing, as it now does, to invite 
outrage upon them. By the way, it is a pity that he undertook 
"Reconstruction." It was entirely beyond his civil capacity to do 
so : and it was entirely beyond his military capacity to have a part 
in setting up any other than a military or provisional government. 
Moreover, this is the only kind of government which it is proper 
to set up in the midst of war. The leisure and advantages of 
peace are necessary in the great and difficult work of establishing 
a permanent government. In this connection let me advert for a 
moment to the doctrine, "Once a State always a State" — a doc- 
trine so frequently wielded against " Reconstruction " on any 
terms. Where is the authority for this doctrine ? In the Consti- 
tution, it is said. But nowhere does the Constitution say that a 
State may plunge into war, secure at all hazards from some of the 
penalties of war. But amongst the penalties of Avar is whatever 
change the conqueror may choose to impose upon the conquered 
territory. I admit that it is very desirable to have all the revolt- 
ing States reestablished — reinstated. But that there is any law by 
which this becomes inevitable is absurd. Nowhere does the Con- 
stitution say that a State is to be exempt from the operation of 
the law of war. Nowhere does it undertake to override the law 
of war. How clear is it, then, that by this paramount law these 
revolted States will, when conquered, lie at the will of the con- 
queror ! And how clear is it, that it will then turn not at all 
upon the Constitution, but iq)on this will of the conqueror, 
backed by this paramount law of war, whether the old statehood 
of these States shall be revived, or whether they shall be re- 
manded to a territorial condition, and put upon their good be- 
havior ! 

There is another instance in which the President has contribut- 
ed to that cruel public sentiment, which leaves the black race un- 
protected. I refer to his so strangely long delay in promising pro- 
tection to the black soldier, and to the even longer and not yet 
ended delay in affording it. The President is a humane as well 
as an honest man ; and the only explanation I can find for his de- 
lay to protect the black soldier and to put an end, so far as in him 
lies, to the various, innumerable, incessant outrages upon the freed- 
men is in the continuance of his childish and cowardly desire to 
conciliate his native Kentucky and the Democratic party. 

I argued that even President Lincoln is responsible in some de- 
gree for that public sentiment, which invites outrage upon the black 
man and leaves him a prey to the wicked. Those Members of Con- 
gress, who are opposing the reasonable measure of letting the black 
man vote in the Territories, are also guilty of favoring that public 
sentiment which broke out in the crime at Fort Pillow and Ply- 
mouth. Similarly guilty are those members who would make the 
pay of a black soldier less than that of a white one. And so are 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 9 

those members who consent to leave a fugitive slave statute in 
existence. In a word, all should tax their consciences with the sin 
of this public sentiment and with the resulting crime at Fort Pil- 
low and Plymouth, whose influence, by either word or deed, has 
been to keep up in this heathen land the caste-spirit — that pre- 
eminent characteristic of heathenism. I call this a heathen land. 
To the Christ-Religion — that simple religion of equal rights and 
of doing as you would be done by — there can be no greater insult 
than to call a nation in which, as in this, the most cruel and mur- 
derous caste-spirit prevails, a Christian nation. 

Both on the right hand and on the left, I hear that our nation is 
to be saved. But my fears that it will not, often become very 
strong. That the Rebellion is to be crushed, I deeply believe. Often 
in the course of Providence a wicked people, which is itself to be 
afterward destroyed, is previously to be used in destroying another 
and generally more wicked people. There are striking illustrations 
of this in the Bible. The duty of abolitionists and anti-abolition- 
ists, Democrats and Republicans, to work unitedly, incessantly, 
and unconditionally for the overthrow of the Rebellion I have not 
only never doubted, but ever urged. I hold it to be unpatriotic 
and even traitorous for the Abolitionists to make any conditions in 
behalf of their specialty, and to propose, as some of them do, to 
go against the Rebellion only so far as going against it will be 
going against slavery. So too are those Democrats unpatriotic and 
even traitorous who can favor the War, only under the stipulation 
that it be so conducted as to harm neither the Democratic party 
nor the Constitution. To put down the Rebellion is an object im- 
measurably higher than to save a party or to save the Constitution, 
or even to save the country. No man is right-minded, who would 
not have it put down, even though it be at the expense of the last 
man and the last dollar. 

If any thing makes me doubt that the Rebellion will be crushed 
it is the omission of Congress to abolish slavery, now when it is 
so clearly seen that the abolition of slavery is an indispensable 
means to the abolition of the Rebellion. The proposed Amend- 
ment to the Constitution I take no interest in. One reason why I 
do not, is, that it is not a proposition to abolish slavery ?iow. An- 
other is, that war is not the time to be tinkering at constitutions. 
I see it denied that Congress lias the power, even as a war meas- 
ure, to abolish slavery. Amazing delusion ! There is in every 
nation an absolute power for carrying on war. The nation that 
disclaims it may as well give up being a nation. In our own, this 
power is vested in Congress. Congress is to declare war : and 
Congress is " to make all laws necessary and proper (itself of course 
the sole judge of the necessity and propriety) for carrying into 
execution" the declaration. Is it the institution of apprenticeship, 
which it finds to be in the way of the successful prosecution of the 
war? — then is it to sweep it out of the way. Is it the abomina- 
tion of slavery ? — then is it to strike at that. 

There is, however, one thing more which sometimes, though not 



10 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

often, raises a doubt in me whether the Rebellion will he crushed. 
It is the premature agitation of the Presidential question. When 
the Rebellion broke out, I assumed that it would be put down in a 
few months — for I assumed that this greatest crime against nation- 
ality and humanity would arouse and unite the whole North. How 
greatly was I mistaken ! Very soon the Democratic party was 
seen to prefer itself to the country. The Republican party stood 
by the country. But at the present time there is no little danger 
that the country may be sacrificed in a strife between the mem- 
bers of the Republican party. For, taking advantage of this 
strife, the Democratic party may succeed in getting the reins of 
Government into the hands of one of its pro-slavery peacemakers. 
But I may be asked — will not the rebels be conquered and the 
country saved before the next Election ? I still hope so — and until 
the last few months I believed so. But is there not some reason 
to fear that the North will be wrought up to a greater interest in 
this year's Presidential than in this year's military campaign ? 
In other words, is there not some reason to fear that, for the 
coming six months, politics instead of patriotism will be in the 
ascendant ? 

I still say, as through the past winter I have frequently said, 
written, and printed — that the Presidential question should not 
have been talked of, no, nor so much as thought of, until midsum- 
mer. The first of September is quite early enough to make the 
nomination ; and in the mean time, undistracted by this so dis- 
tracting subject, we should be working as one man for the one ob- 
ject of ending the Rebellion — and of ending it before reaching 
the perils of a presidential election. And such working would 
best educate us to make the best choice of a candidate. More- 
over, it is the condition the country will be in three or four 
months hence, rather than the condition it is now in, that should 
be allowed to indicate the choice. Great and rapidly successive 
are the changes in the circumstances of a country in time of war. 
To nominate a President in time of peace, six months earlier than 
is necessary, all would admit to be great folly. But greater folly 
would it be to nominate him in time of war even a single month 
earlier than is necessary. The Baltimore Convention is under- 
stood to be a movement for renominating President Lincoln, and 
the Cleveland Convention one for nominating General Fremont. 
Would that both Conventions were dropped ! Would indeed 
that the Avhole subject were dropped until July or August ! — and 
would too that it Avere dropped with the understanding, that it 
should then be taken up, not by the politicians, but by the 
people ! 

The people would present a loyal and an able candidate : and 
whether it were Lincoln or Fremont, Chase or Butler, Dickinson 
or Dix, the country would be safe. 

I recall at this moment the large and respectable meeting for 
consultation held in Albany last January. What a pity that the 
meeting took fright at the temperate and timely resolutions re- 



GEKKIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 11 

ported to it! What a pity that the meeting saw in them danger 
to the country, or perhaps, more properly speaking, to a party ! 
One of these resolutions and its advocates urged the importance 

of postponing until the latest possible day the whole subject of a 
Presidential nomination : and, had it been adopted and published, 
it would not unlikely have exerted sufficient influence to bring 
about such postponement. Time has proved the wisdom of the 
other resolutions also. I wish 1 could, without seeming egotism, 
say that slavery, and slavery alone, having brought this Avar upon 
us, they, who have given but little thought to slavery, should be 
too modest to toss aside indignantly and sneeringly the sugges- 
tions of those who have made it their life-long study. Were 
these resolutions now published, almost every man who opposed 
them, would wonder that he had so little foresight as to oppose 
them. 

And there is still another thing which should perhaps be allow- 
ed to suggest a doubt whether the rebellion will be crushed. It 
is, that we are so reluctant to pay the cost of crushing it. Our 
brave soldiers and sailors give their lives to this end. But Ave 
who stay at home shrink from the money tax which is, and which 
should be far more largely put upon us. Our nation is imperiled 
by the incessant outfloAV of a big stream of gold. Wise and pat- 
riotic as he is, our Secretary of the Treasury Avill nevertheless 
labor in wain to diminish this stream unless importations shall be 
taxed far more heavily. Deeply disgraceful are these import- 
ations when it is by all that is precious in the very life of our 
nation that they are forbidden. Surely it is no time now to 
be indulging in foreign luxuries : and as to necessaries, our oavh 
country can furnish them all. Luxuries, whether foreign or do- 
mestic, should all come now with great cost to the consumer. 
And only a small return for protecting their estates from the reb- 
els would it be for the rich to pay over to GoA T ernment one fourth, 
and the very rich one half of their incomes. Let me add in 
this connection that the State Banks should be so patriotic, as to 
rejoice in the national advantage of an exclusively National cur- 
rency. 

I expressed my belief that the rebellion Avill be crushed — but 
my doubt whether the nation Avill be saA T ed. A guilty nation, like 
a guilty individual, can be saved through repentance only. But 
where are the proofs that this nation has so much as begun to re- 
pent of the great sin, which has brought the great calamity upon 
her? She has, it is true, done much to prove that she regards sla- 
very as a political and economical evil, and a source of great peril 
to the nation : but she has done exceedingly little toward proving 
that she has a penitent sense of her sin in fastening the yoke of 
slavery on ten to twenty millions of this and former generations.. 
It is only here and there — at Avide intervals both of time and 
space — that has been heard the penitent exclamation, " We are 
verily guilty concerning our brother ;" — only at these wide inter- 
vals that has been seen any relaxation of the national hatred and 



12 GERRIT SMITH OjST THE REBELLION. 

scorn for the black man. " Abolitionist," which, when the nation 
shall be saved, will be the most popular name in it, is still the 
most odious and contemptible name in it. That the fugitive slave 
statute is still suffered to exist, is ample proof that this nation has 
still a devil's heart toward the black man. How sad that even 
now, when because of the sin of slaveholding, God is making 
blood flow like water in this land, there should be found mem- 
bers of Congress, who claim this infernal statute to be one of the 
rights of slaveholding ! As if slaveholding had rights ! As if 
any thing else than punishment were due to it ! — punishment ade- 
quate to its unmingled, unutterable, and blasphemous wrongs ! 

I shall, however, be told that slaveiy will soon be abolished 
by an Amendment of the Constitution. And what will such an 
Amendment say ? Why, nothing more than that slavery ought 
not to be — must not be — when it shall no longer be constitutional. 
What, however, the American people need to say, is, that be it con- 
stitutional or unconstitutional, slavery shall not be. So they are 
always prepared to say regarding murder. But slavery is worse 
than murder. Every right-minded man had far rather his child 
were murdered than enslaved. Why, then, do they not affirm that, 
in no event, will they tolerate slavery any more than murder ? The 
one answer is — because it is the black man, and the black man 
only, on whom slavery falls. Were white Americans to be en- 
slaved in a Barbary State, or anywhere else, our nation would re- 
spect no pleadings of statutes or even of constitutions for their 
enslavement. In defiance of whatever pleas or whatever re- 
straints, she would release them if she could. The most stupen- 
dous hypocrisy of which America has been guilty, is first profess- 
ing that there is law for slavery — law for that which all law pro- 
claims an outlaw — law for that in which there is not one element 
of law, but every element of which is an outrage upon law ; and 
second, in professing it, not because she has a particle of belief in 
it — but simply because blacks instead of whites are the victims of 
her slavery. America declared that John Brown was " rightly 
hung." How hypocritical was the declaration, may be inferred 
from the fact that had they been white instead of black slaves 
whom he flung away his life to rescue, she would have honored 
him as perhaps man has never been honored. And she would 
have made his honors none the less, but heaped them up all the 
more, if, in prosecuting his heroic and merciful Avork, he had tossed 
aside statutes and broken through sacred constitutions. Oh ! if 
this nation shall ever be truly saved, it will no longer regard John 
Brown as worthy of the fate of a felon ; but it will build the 
whitest monuments to his memory, and cherish it as the memory 
of the sublimest and most Christlike man the nation has ever pro- 
duced ! Some of the judgments of John Brown — especially such 
as led him to Harper's Ferry — were unsound and visionary. 
Xevertheless, even when committing his mistakes, he stood, by 
force of the disinterestedness and greatness of his soul, above all 
his countrymen. 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. lo 

Would Congress contribute most effectively to put down the 
rebellion, and to save the nation by the great salvations of peni- 
tence and justice — the only real salvations '? Would it do this ? — 
then let it pass, solemnly and unanimously, a resolution that there 
never was and never can be, either inside or outside of statutes or 
constitutions, law for slavery; and then another resolution that, 
whoever shall attempt to put the yoke of slavery on however 
humble a neck, black or white, deserves to be put to death. 

A word further in regard to the proposed Amendment. Were 
the impudent and monstrous claim of its being law set up for 
murder, no one Avould propose an amendment of the Constitution 
forbidding murder. The only step in that case would be to make 
the penalty for the crime more sure and if possible more severe. 
Such an amendment would be strenuously objected to, in that it 
would stain the Constitution with the implication that murder 
had been constitutional. And now, if we shall have a Constitu- 
tional Amendment, which, in terms, forbids slavery, (it is already 
forbidden by the spirit, principles, and even provisions of the Con- 
stitution,) shall we not be virtually admitting to the world and to 
posterity that this nation had been guilty of tolerating, if not 
indeed of positively authorizing, in its Constitution the highest 
crime of earth ? God save us from an admission, which shall 
serve both to stamp us with infamy and to perpetuate the infamy ! 

Peterboro, April 26, 1804. 



LETTER TO MRS. STANTON 
OIST THE PKESIDENTIAL QUESTION. 



Peteeboeo, June 6, 1864. 
Mes. E. Cady Stanton, New-York : 

My Deae Cousin : I have your letter. It would be too great 
labor to answer all, who seek to know my choice amongst the 
presidential candidates. But I must answer you. 

I have no choice. The first of September will be time enough 
for me and for every other person to have one. Intermediate 
events and changes will be indispensable lessons in our learning 
who should be the preferred candidate. To commit ourselves in 
time of war to a candidate one month before it is necessary, is 
worse than would be a whole year of such prematureness in time 
of peace. Then there is the absorbing, not to say frenzying, 
interest, which attends our important elections. That it is fren- 
zying is manifest from the scornful reproach and wild invective, 
which the press is already heaping up on Lincoln and Fremont — 
both of them honest and able men, and both of them intent on 
saving the country. How unwise, nay how insane, to let this ab- 
sorbing and frenzying interest come needlessly early into rivalry 
with our interest in the one great work of crushing the rebellion ! 
For more than half a year have I frequently and faithfully, both 
with lips and pen, deprecated the premature agitation of the 
question who should be the chosen candidate. If, therefore, the 
Cleveland and Baltimore Conventions shall have the effect to 
divide the loyal voters so far as to let a pro-slavery and sham 
Democrat slip into the Presidency through their divisions, I, at 
least, shall not be responsible for the ruin that may come of it. 

My concern whether it shall be Lincoln or Fremont or Chase or 
Butler or Grant who shall reach the presidential chair is compar- 
atively very slight. But my concern to keep out of it a man, 
who would make any other terms with the rebels than their abso- 
lute submission is overwhelming. For any other terms would not 
only destroy our nation, but lessen the sacredness of nationality 
everywhere, and sadly damage the most precious interests of all 
mankind. 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 15 

Since the Rebellion broke out, I have been nothing but an anti- 
rebellion man. So unconditionally have I gone for putting it 
down unconditionally, as to make no stipulations in behalf of my 
most cherished objects and dearest interests. And so shall I 
continue to go. I love the anti-slavery cause. Nevertheless, I 
would have the rebellion put down at whatever necessary ex- 
pense to that cause. I love the Constitution ; and deprecate the 
making of any even the slightest change in it. Nevertheless, I 
make infinitely less account of saving it than of destroying the 
rebellion. I love my country. But sooner than see her compro- 
mise with the rebels, I would see her exhaust herself and perish 
in her endeavors to defeat their crime — that greatest crime of 
all the ages and all the world. I do not forget that many of my 
old fellow abolitionists accuse me of having been unfaithful to the 
anti-slavery cause during the rebellion. My first answer to 
them is — that to help suppress the rebellion is the duty which 
stands nearest to me : and my second answer — that in no way so 
well as in suppressing it can the anti-slavery cause or any other 
good cause be promoted. There is not a good cause on the earth 
that has not an enemy in the unmixed and mighty wickedness of 
this rebellion. 

You will rightly infer from what I have said, that my vote will 
be cast just where I shall judge it will be like to go farthest in 
keeping a disloyal man out of the Presidency. My definition of 
a disloyal man includes every one who would consent to obtain 
peace by concessions to the rebels — concessions however slight. 
Should the rebellion be disposed of before the election, I might 
possibly refuse to vote for any of the present candidates. When 
voting in time of war, and especially such a fearful war as the 
present, for a Governor or President, I vote for a leader in the 
Avar rather than for a civil ruler. Where circumstances leave me 
free to vote for a man with reference mainly to his qualifications 
as a civil ruler, I am, as my voting for thirty years proves, very 
particular how I vote. In 1856, Fremont was in nomination for 
the Chief Magistracy. I honored him — but I did not vote for him. 
In 1860, Lincoln was nominated for it. I had read his Debate 
with Senator Douglas, and I thought well of him. But neither 
for him did I vote. To-day, however, I could cheerfully vote for 
either to be the constitutional head of the army and navy. I 
go further, and say, that to save the Presidential office from going 
into the hands of one who would compromise with the rebels, I 
would vote for a candidate far more unsound on slavery than the 
severest abolition critic might judge either Lincoln or Fremont to 
be. But were there no such danger, I would sternly refuse to vote 
for any man who recognizes, either in or out of the Constitution, 
a law for slavery, or who would graduate any human rights, nat- 
ural or political, by the color of the skin. 

This disposition to meddle with things before their time is one 
that has manifested itself, and worked badly, all the way through 
the war. The wretched attempts at " Reconstruction " are an in- 



16 GEREIT SMITH ON" THE REBELLION". 

stance of it. " Reconstruction " should not so much as have been 
spoken of before the rebellion was subdued. I hope that by 
that time all loyal men, the various doctrines and crotchets to the 
contrary notwithstanding, will be able to see that the seceded 
States did, practically as well as theoretically, get themselves out 
of the Union and Nation — as effectually out as if they had never 
been in. Our war with Mexico ended in a treaty of peace with 
her. Doubtless our war with the South will end in like manner. 
If we are the conqueror, the treaty will, I assume, be based on 
the unconditional surrender of the South. And then the South, 
having again become a portion of our nation, Congress will be 
left as free to ordain the political divisions of her territory, as it 
was to ordain those of the territory we conquered from Mexico. 
Next in order, Congress will very soon, as I have little' doubt, see 
it to be safe and wise to revive our old State lines. Nevertheless, 
I trust, that such revival would never be allowed until Congress 
should see it to be clearly safe and wise. We hear much of the 
remaining constitutional rights of the loyal men in the seceded 
States. But they, no more than their rebellious neighbors, have 
such rights. It is true that the rebellion is their misfortune 
instead of their crime. Nevertheless, it severed every political 
cord as well between the nation and themselves as between the 
nation and those rebellious neighbors. The seceded States em- 
barked in a revolution, which swept away all the j>olitical rela- 
tions of all their people, loyal as well as disloyal. Such is the 
hazard, which no man, however good, can escape from. If the 
major part or supreme power of his State carries it to destruction, 
he is carried along with it. A vigilant, informed, active, influen- 
tial member of his body politic does it therefore behoove every 
good man to be. 

In his haste for " Reconstruction," the President went forward 
in it — whereas he is entitled to not the least part in it, until Con- 
gi-ess has first acted in it. In the setting uj> of military or pro- 
visional governments, as we proceed in our conquests, his is the 
controlling voice — for he is the military head of the nation. 
But in regard to the setting up of civil governments in the wake 
of those conquests, he is entitled to no voice at all until after Con- 
gress has spoken. 

Another instance of meddling with things before their time is 
this slapping of the face of France with the " Monroe Doctrine." 
I was about to say that doing so serves but to provoke the enmity 
of France. There is, however, one thing more which it provokes — 
and that is the ridicule of the world. For us, whilst the rebels 
are still at the throat of our nation, and may even be at her 
. funeral, to be resolving that we will protect the whole Western 
Continent from the designs of the whole Eastern Continent, is 
as ludicrous a piece of impotent bravado as ever the world 
laughed at. 

And still another instance of our foolish prematureness is the 
big words in which we threaten to punish the leaders of the 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 17 

rebellion. It would be time enough for these big "words when 
we had subdued the rebellion and captured the leaders. In the 
mean time there should be only big blows. Moreover, if ivc shall 
succeed in getting these Leaders into our hands, it will be a ques- 
tion for the gravest consideration whether Ave should not beg 
their pardon instead of punishing them. What was it that 
stirred up the rebellion ? The spirit of slavery. That alone is 
the spirit by means of which Southern treason can build up a fire 
in the Southern heart whose flames shall burst out in rebellion. 
Slavery gone from the South, and there will never more be re- 
bellions there to disturb the peace and pro sper ity in which North 
and South will ever after dwell together. Which was the guiltier 
party in feeding and inflaming that spirit? The pro-slavery and 
preponderant North. The guiltier North it was, that had the 
more responsible part in moulding the leaders of the rebellion. 
Does it then become this guiltier North to be vengeful tow r ard 
these her own creations — her own children ? — and, what is more, 
vengeful toward them for the bad spirit which she herself had so 
large a share in breathing into them? — for the Satanic character 
which she herself did so much to produce in them ? But I shall 
be told that the North has repented of her part in upholding 
slavery, and thereby furnishing the cause of the rebellion ; and 
that the South should have followed her example. But if her 
repentance did not come until after the rebellion broke out, then 
surely it came too late to save her from responsibility for the 
rebellion. Has it, however, come even yet? I see no proof of 
it. I can see none so long as the American people continue to 
trample upon the black man. God can see none. Nor will he 
stay his desolating judgments so long as the American Congress, 
instead of wiping out penitently and indignantly all fugitive slave 
statutes, is infatuated enough to be still talking of " the rights 
of slaveholders," and of this being " a nation for white men." 
Assured let us be, that God will never cease from his controversy 
with this guilty nation until it shall have ceased from its base 
and blasphemous policy of proscribing, degrading, and outraging 
pprtions of his one family. The insult to him in the persons of 
his red and black children, of which Congress was guilty in its 
ordinance for the Territory of Montana, will yet be punished in 
blood, if it be not previously washed out in the tears of peni- 
tence. And this insult, too, whilst the nation is under God's 
blows for like insults ! What a silly as well as wicked Congress ! 
And then that such a Congress should continue the policy of pro- 
viding chaplains for the army! Perhaps, however, it might be 
regarded as particularly fit for such a Congress to do this. Chap- 
lains to pray for our country's success whilst our country contin- 
ues to perpetrate the most flagrant and diabolical forms of injust- 
ice ! As if the doing of justice were not the indispensable way 
of praying to the God of Justice! It is idle to imagine that God 
is on the side of this nation. lie can not be with us. For whilst 
he is everywhere with justice, he is nowhere with injustice. I 
2 



18 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

admit that he is not on the side of the rebellion. From nothing 
in all his universe can his soul be further removed than from this 
most abominable of all abominations. If we succeed in putting 
it down, our success, so far as God is concerned, will be only 
because he hates the rebellion even more than he hates our 
wickedness. To expect help from him iu any other point of view 
than this, is absurd. Aside from this, our sole reliance must be, 
as was the elder Napoleon's, on having "the strongest battal- 
ions." I believe we shall succeed — but that it will be only for the 
reasons I have mentioned — only because we are the stronger party 
and that God is even more against the rebels than he is against 
us. How needful, however, that we guard ourselves from con- 
founding success against the rebellion with the salvation of the 
nation ! Whether the nation shall be saved is another question 
than whether the rebellion shall be suppressed. In the provi- 
dence of God, even a very wicked nation may be allowed to 
become a conqueror — may be used to punish another wicked 
nation before the coming of its own turn to be conquered and 
punished. But a nation, like an individual, can be saved only by 
penitence and justice. 



LETTER TO MESSES. WADE AND DAVIS. 



Peteruoro, August 8, 1864. 
Hon. B. F. Wade, 
Hon. H. Winter Davis : 

Gentlemen: I have read your Protest. It is a strongly reas- 
oned and instructive paper. Nevertheless, I regret its appearance. 
For it will serve to reduce the public good-will towards Mr. Lin- 
coln ; and that is what, just at this time, the public interest can 
not afford. It may turn out that Mr. Lincoln is the man for 
whom it will be vital to the national existence to cast the largest 
possible vote. Personally he may not be more worthy of it than 
Mr. Fremont or Mr. Chase, or some other man, who may be nom- 
inated. But, if as the election draws near, it shall be seen that 
he will probably get a larger vote than any other candidate of 
the uncompromising opponents of the rebellion, then it will be 
the absolute duty of every one of them to vote for him. The 
election of a man who would consent to any thing short of the un- 
conditional surrender of those, who, without even the slightest 
cause of complaint, have made Avar upon us, would not only be 
the ruin of our nation, but it would be also the base betrayal of 
that sacred cause of nationality, which they of one nation owe it to 
those of every other nation, the earth over, to cherish and main- 
tain. But no such consequence, nor any other fatal consequence, 
would there be, should a loyal man of whatever faults be elect- 
ed — a man who, because he is loyal, would in no event fail to in- 
sist on the absolute submission of those who had causelessly re- 
belled against their country. Hence, though it may be at the ex- 
pense of passing by our favorite candidate, we should neverthe- 
less all feel ourselves urged by the strongest possible motives to 
cast our votes just where they will be like to contribute most to 
defeat the compromising or sham peace candidate. 

Mr. Lincoln, although an able, honest, patriotic man, has fallen 
into grave errors. But who, in his perplexing circumstances, 
would have been exempt from them? He has depended too large- 
ly on the policy of conciliation. He has made too much account 
of pleasing Border States and Peace Democrats. But in all this 
lie has sought not his own advantage, but the safety of his coun 



20 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

try from the harm with'which Border States and Peace Dem- 
ocrats (same thing as Pro-Slavery Democrats) threatened her. 

Nor has Mr. Lincoln always kept himself within the sphere of 
his office. I do not mean that he went out of it in imprisoning a 
few treasonable men. He should have imprisoned more. Nor 
do I refer to his suppression of a few treasonable newspapers. He 
should have suppressed many more. In almost any other nation 
with rebels at its throat, the printing of " the forged Proclama- 
tion " would have been visited with the severest penalties. The 
plea that the offense was committed where war was not actual, 
would have been scouted. Nay, the presumption to offer it would 
have been lacking. By the Avay, the city of New- York is em- 
phatically a theater of the war. Thousands there with worse 
than Southern hearts — for Northern rebels are worse than South- 
ern rebels — are constantly plotting war against their country. 
Occasionally their war comes to the surface. It did so when, a 
little more than a year ago, it broke out in plunders and murders 
meaner and more malignant than the world had ever before seen. 
It will break out again as soon as some other* conjunction of cir- 
cumstances shall promise success. New- York not a theater of the 
war ! Why, we have immeasurably more to fear from the ever- 
warring disloyalty of New- York and Philadelphia, than from the 
swords and guns of Richmond and Atlanta. But what if there 
be not actual war, has been none, and will probably be none in 
the locality where the press utters treason ? — may not the war 
power lay its suppressing hand on that press ? If it may not, 
then the country may be lost. For, in the first place, civil pro- 
ceedings may be too slow to save it ; and, in the second place, 
the locality may be too disloyal to favor even civil proceedings. 
New- York has not favored them. She has not punished her trea- 
sonable newspapers ; and that she has not is strong proof that she 
w r ill not, and is of itself ample reason why the war power should. 
Moreover, however loyal might be the locality, it would not be 
right in all cases for the w r ar power to depend upon her motions. 
In a matter, which is vital to the nation, the nation itself must 
act. Her life must not be left to hinge upon the will or conduct 
of any locality, however loyal. 

I have virtually said that a treasonable press is capable of work- 
ing ruin to a country. " The forged Proclamation," for instance, 
was a blow at the credit and at the very life of the nation. But for 
the intervention of the military arm it would have done much evil, 
and other disloyal presses would have been emboldened to do more. 
I add that if it were left alone to the civil authority to watch the 
presses in the North, a very considerable share of them would quick- 
ly be teeming with treason. If, then, the war power is as limited as 
last Saturday's Opinion of the Court in the case of The People 
against General Dix makes it, and if also that power shall submit 
to that limitation, then of necessity will the work of debauching 
the Northern mind by a disloyal Northern press go on toward 
its fatal result even more rapidly than ever. 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 21 

The jurisdiction of General Pix is called in question. It is as 
ample and absolute as that of Sherman before Atlanta or Grant 
before Richmond. Were citizens of New- York to strike Govern- 
ment troops in that city, he clearly would have as much right to 
strike back as have Sherman and Grant in such a case ; and as 
clearly he would no more than they be under obligation to wait 
for redress at the hands of the civil authorities. But the right of 
the military commander to strike back, when newspapers strike 
at the existence of the nation, is even more vital. A single col- 
umn of newspaper treason might imperil the nation more than 
could many columns of armed foes. Is it said that so great power 
in an individual is very dangerous ? I grant it. And therefore 
we must as far as possible keep out of war — for in war there 
must be such power in a single hand. 

I do not fear that General 1 >ix will abuse his office, lie is both a 
wise and a just man : and that he, who has borne himself so beau- 
tifully in our war, should be degraded to a culprit in our courts — 
and this too in return for a service he did his country — makes us 
blush for that country. It was he who in his Order, at the very 
beginning of the War, toshoot downthe man who should strike down 
the flag, sounded the very key-note of that patriotic spirit in which 
it was our duty to conduct the War. In that Order he virtually 
bade us all stand unconditionally by our country against what- 
ever rebels or rascals. 

I honor the good intentions of President Lincoln. But I 
would that he had the nerve to meet, as General Jackson would 
have met, these traitorous men amongst us, who, when the state 
of the country is such as to make its salvation turn on a liberal in- 
terpretation of the powers of the Executive, study the reduction 
and belittling of those powers. Valuable as are the virtues of 
forbearance and forgiveness, we have had quite too much of them 
for our safety. Stern justice, whilst always a no less excellent 
virtue, is, in the time of stern Avar, a far more timely and neces- 
sary one. Would that the President might mingle a little more of 
it with his kind and patient spirit ! 

I said that the President has not always kept himself within 
his official limits. His Amnesty Proclamation is one of the in- 
stances in which he has exceeded them. In his military capacity 
he had nothing to do with the reconstruction of civil govern- 
ments ; and in no other capacity had he any thing to do with it 
until Congress had acted upon it. It was for him to set up mili- 
tary governments in the wake of our advancing armies. But it 
was not for him to concern himself about the permanent or civil 
governments, that would come to take the place of these tempo- 
rary provisions. 

By many the President is condemned for his slowness. Per- 
haps he is too slow in some things. There are others, however, in 
which he is too fast. But in this latter fault the! great mass of 
the loyal men both in and out of Congress are with him. I agree 
with you that the President's plan of settlement is a wrong one. 



22 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

But your Congressional plan, like his, is premature. How much 
precious time was wasted over the premature question of the 
confiscation of real estate ! Not a foot of it should have been 
sold before the close of the war. Nothing should have been 
done with it but to lease the vacant portions of it — and that only 
from year to year. No great inconvenience could ensue from such 
a postponement of the sale of Southern soil, nor from such a post- 
ponement of the setting up of civil government upon it. War 
and especially such a Avar as this — is no time for unnecessary 
work. It will not be well done. Moreover, the doing of it will 
leave necessaiy work ill-done. 

Then there is the unseasonable work of altering the Constitu- 
tion. Not one moment should have been wasted in that worse 
than useless direction. If nothing in the Constitution hinders the 
most effectual prosecution of the war, then surely there is no 
excuse for embarrassing ourselves in time of war Avith attempts to 
alter it. If, on the other hand, any thing in it stands in the Avay of 
such prosecution, Congress can virtually o\ r ercome it. For the 
Constitution does itself accord to Congress the poAver to make 
Avhatever laAvs it thinks " necessary and proper " for carrying on 
the Avar, be it even laAvs for taking into military service every 
slave and every apprentice or eA T ery schoolhouse and every church 
in the land. A nation is no nation — certainly it could not long 
be one — that does not recognize such absolute poAver. 

Then there is the undue haste to come to the terms of peace — a 
haste with Avhich the President is no more chargeable than thou- 
sands of loyal men. When they who Avithout the least provocation 
took up arms to dismember our beloved country, shall lay them doAvn, 
then and not till then are we to be for peace, or for any thing but 
war. Then and not till then, are we to talk or even to think of 
the terms of peace. The war ended, and then will be the time 
for our concessions to our deluded brethren. Just and generous 
may these concessions be ! There are many good people Avho, in 
their great desire for peace, Avould haA^e the Avar ended on any 
terms. They Avould even come to the ever-insisted-on terms of 
the rebels, and accept of disunion. But these good people are 
foolish people. There can be no peace in disunion. A truce, 
and a very brief one, is the best there could be. War Avould break 
out every feAV years. Besides that we can get a peace only by 
conquering it, it can abide only on the condition of reunion. 

And then these premature Presidential nominations, which for 
six months I was so earnestly deprecating. God grant that they 
may not fatally divide us ! God grant that they may not fatally 
divert our interest from the prosecution of the Avar! But the 
blame of these nominations rests not on the President, but on the 
mass of his party. 

The putting doAvn of the rebellion — that is our one present 
work. Our absolution in it should be so entire, as to leave us no 
time and no heart for any thing which is unnecessary, or for any 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION". 23 

thing which is necessary until the very day, nay the very hour, 
when it has become necessary. 

I scarcely need add that in giving ourselves to the work of 
overthrowing the rebellion we are to make no conditions. I 
scarcely need add that those Democrats are to be condemned, who 
insist-on stipulating for the safety of slavery ere they can embark 
inthis work ; nor that those abolitionists are also to be condemned 
who put the abolition of slavery before the suppression of the re- 
bellion. This suppi-ession is the duty which must be discharged, 
come what will of its discharge to the Democratic or the aboli- 
tion party. For it is the nearest duty. Moreover, let the aboli- 
tionist magnify the crime of slavery as he will, the crime of the 
rebellion remains the far greater one. For the rebellion super- 
adds to all that is bad in slavery, parricidal blows at the life of 
the country and contempt of the sacredness of nationality. I have 
myself been a somewhat earnest advocate of abolition. But at 
no time during the rebellion have I felt at liberty to inquire of 
abolition whether, or how, I should work toward putting down 
the rebellion. I add that, as the sole legitimate object of the 
war we are prosecuting is to put down the rebellion, therefore 
none have the right to embarrass or pervert the war by their 
schemes to harm or their schemes to help slavery. We do not 
say that the abolitionist is to cease working against or the anti- 
abolitionist is to cease working for slavery. But we do say that 
the putting down of the rebellion is the common work of aboli- 
tionists and anti-abolitionists, Democrats and Republicans : and 
that, differ as they may in other respects, they are to be one in the 
prosecution of this common work. A traitor to his country is he 
who, when traitors have fallen upon her, allows himself under the 
counsels of any party, however dear, any interest, however cher- 
ished, or any cause, however sacred, to withhold his help from her. 
Such party, such interest, such cause notwithstanding, he is to be 
" arm and soul" against the traitors. 

I repeat that I regret your Protest — or rather, I should say, the 
unseasonable publication of it. There is a great deal of truth in 
it — and generally a very forcible presentation of that truth. But 
the country can not now afford to have the hold of Mr. Lincoln on 
the popular confidence weakened. Pardon me for saying that the 
eve of the Presidential Election is not the time to be making an 
issue with Mr. Lincoln in regard to either his real or supposed 
errors. For, from present indications, it is highly probable that 
we shall need to concentrate upon him the votes of all the loyal 
voters in order to defeat the disloyal candidate. Issues with the 
Southern rebels and their Northern friends are the only ones we 
can afford to make before the election. Let Lincoln get all the 
loyal votes, let Fremont get them, let Chase get them, let any 
other loyal man get them, if this shall be necessary to prevent the 
election of one who is in the interest of the rebellion and of a 
spurious peace. I doubt not from your ardent patriotism and your 
strong sense, that you entirely agree with me at this point ; and 



24 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION". 

that they altogether misjudge you, who suppose that you will in no 
event vote for Mr. Lincoln. The election of no loyal man, how- 
ever faulty he may be, can destroy the nation. But the election 
of whatever disloyal man will. Strong as is your dislike of some 
of Mr. Lincoln's measures, you will not suffer it to stand in the 
way of your voting to save the country, nor in the Avay of your 
entreatino; others to do so. 



ON McCLELLAN'S NOMINATION AND ACCEPTANCE. 



I white these pages for the candid. Partisans would not hear 
me. They follow party. Those only will hear me who follow 
truth ; and who will still follow it at whatever expense to party. 

The North is divided — fearfully divided. One portion holds 
that the North, and the other that the South is the guilty party in 
this war. Which of them is right, is the great, nay the only 
question to be answered at the coming Election. If the North is 
the guilty party, then McClellan should be preferred. If the 
South, then Lincoln. I name them because every day makes it 
more evident that all our votes will finally be concentrated on 
them. McClellan is the candidate of those who hold the North 
to be the guilty party, and therefore whatever exceptions some of 
them take to him, all will feel constrained to vote for him. So, 
too, all who hold that the South is the guilty party, will feel it 
to be their duty to vote for Lincoln. Many of them would prefer 
to vote for Fremont, if they could thereby vote as effectively to 
defeat the candidate whose sympathies are with the South. But 
this they now see they can not do. It is in this wise that Fremont 
and Cochrane will themselves, notwithstanding their dislike of 
some of his measures, vote for Lincoln. They are too magnani- 
mous to let personal considerations hinder them from voting for 
him ; and they are too patriotic to withhold a vote, which they 
think the salvation of the country calls for. Nay, they will has- 
ten to inspire their friends with the like magnanimity and patriot- 
ism. So, too, the great influence of Wendell Phillips will be 
brought to the side of Lincoln, as soon as he shall see that the 
man to be elected must be cither Lincoln or a servant of the 
South. Strong as is his preference for Fremont, he will not let it 
work to the destruction of his country. 

We need not go back of the Convention, which nominated Lin- 
coln, to learn that the Union party lays nil the blame of the war 
upon the South. Nor need we go back of the Convention, which 
nominated McClellan, to learn that the Democratic party lays all 
the blame of it on the North. The proceedings of the Chicago 
Convention afford conclusive evidence that the Democratic party 
is identified with the rebellion ; is at peace with the enemies in- 



26 GERRIT SMITH ON" THE REBELLION". 

stead of the friends of the nation — at peace with the South, and 
at war with the North, Nevertheless, it is not to be condemned, 
but rather to be honored for this, provided the North is the guilty 
party in the war. I am not of those whose motto is : " Our 
country, right or wrong." It is only when she is right, that I am 
with her. I can be loyal to the North so far only as she is loyal 
to justice. Nor, if I would, could I help her wherein she breaks 
with justice. A nation, like an individual, puts herself beyond 
the reach of help in proportion as she defies the claims of truth 
and righteousness. 

Let me here say that McClellan, no more than any other mem- 
ber of the Democratic party, is necessarily worthy of condemna- 
tion for opposing the cause in which his country is embarked. 
Nay, if it is an unrighteous cause, then it is proper in him to 
stand forth against it — to stand forth as distinctly and emphati- 
cally as he does by accepting his nomination at the hands of the 
enemies of that cause. 

I repeat, the question to be passed upon at the coming election 
is — which is the guilty party in this Avar — the North or the 
South ? It is admitted that the South took up arms to dismember 
our nation : and that she robbed it of moneys, forts, guns, and 
portions of our little standing army. It is admitted, too, that it 
was only in reply to these outrages, that we armed ourselves. 
Hence whilst the war on her part is offensive, on ours it is but 
defensive. Notwithstanding all this, the North may not be the 
innocent party. For she may have oppressed and provoked the 
South beyond endurance. I am slow to admit that any rebellion 
in a land where there is free access to the ballot-box can be justi- 
fied. Nevertheless, if it can be shown that it was because she 
was made to suffer intolerable oppressions that she flew to 
arms, 1 will not condemn her. Had she such oppressions to 
complain of? 

It is said, more in Europe, however, than in America, that our 
high tariff was a burden upon the South. Never, however, had 
we a tariff so nearly approaching free-trade, as when her States 
began to secede. Moreover, the South could have had it as much 
lower as she pleased. What, however, if our tariff were not a 
proper one ? — that surely would not be enough to justify rebel- 
lion. 

Had the South any right to call herself oppressed by the elec- 
tion of Lincoln ? None at all. He was elected constitutionally. 
But he Avas against slavery ! It is true that he was — only mod- 
erately so, however. Several of the Presidents immediately pre- 
ceding him were thoroughly for slavery. And yet the North did 
not claim that she was oppressed by their election. Least of all, 
did she claim that their election furnished ground for rebellion. 

Was the South at liberty to regard herself oppressed because 
so much was said at the North against slavery ? Certainly not. 
The Constitution provides for free speech. Moreover, the South 
spoke as freely against our systems of labor, as we did against 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 27 

her slavery. She sneered at our "small-fisted farmers "and out 

"greasy mechanics." She stigmatized our noble laborers as "the 
mudsills of society." Then, too, the South helps semi missiona- 
ries over the earth to argue against idolatries and other abomina- 
tions ; and thus is she estopped, by her own aets from forbidding 
others to search and criticise herself. 

Was the South oppressed by Northern legislation against slav- 
ery? Never. The North was always willing to have the 
Supreme Court of the United States pass upon such legislation. 
"When, however, the North sent Commissioners to the South, to 
induce her to consent to have the constitutionality of those laws 
under which she was casting Northern freemen into the pit of 
slavery, passed upon by that Court, those Commissioners had to 
fly for their lives before the murderous onset made upon them. 

But John Brown, and at other times, other Northern men, 
went into the Southern States to help persons escape from slav- 
ery! The North, however, was not responsible for this. She 
ever stood by slavery, and helped the South tighten the chains of 
the slaves. Little right lias the South to complain of the sympa- 
thy of John Brown and others with her slaves. Where these 
delivered one slave, her kidnappers made slaves of ten Northern 
freemen. But there was rejoicing at the North over the escape 
of Southern slaves ! I admit it. So was there rejoicing at the 
South over the escape of Southern men from Algerine slavery. 
Such rejoicings can not be stopped. And all attempts of the 
South to stop them, will be vain attempts to change human na- 
ture. 

Was the South oppressed by the refusal of the Northern peo- 
ple to accede to a proposition of the Southern people to have an 
amicable separation of the States, and an amicable division of the 
territories, and other national property ? There was no propo- 
sition from the Southern people to the Northern people. There 
was a proposition from Southern individuals, unauthorized by the 
Southern people ; and it was made not to our people, but to our 
Government — to a Government which, instead of being author- 
ized to dismember our nation, is sworn to preserve it, and which, 
instead of being authorized to throw away the Constitution, is 
sworn to keep it sacred and unbroken. The people of the North 
were ready to meet the people of the South in a Convention of 
Delegates. They were ready to make large concessions, in order 
to save from disruption the nation so dear to them. Entirely 
ready they were, I am sorry to believe, to indorse and consum- 
mate the remarkable action of Congress in favor of altering the 
Constitution to the advantage of slavery. In fine, they would 
have consented to almost any demand of the South short of the 
sundering of the nation. This they would not consent to: and, 
because she knew they would not, the South would not have the 
National Convention. The sundering of the nation was the one 
thing she was intent on ; and nothing else, nor all things else, 
would she accept in lieu of it. Hence to get this one thing, 



28 GERRTT SMITH ON THE REBELLION". 

which she could not hope to get otherwise, she resorted to arms. 
Herein and herein only, is the explanation of the outbreak of the 
rebellion. Could she but have been brought to recede -from her 
determination to set up a nation for herself and by herself, all 
other difficulties with the South might have been adjusted. It is 
in no degree necessary to my argument, to explain why she then 
insisted, has ever since insisted, and never more strenuously than 
now, on this national independence. Nevertheless, as some, under 
whose eye this paper may fall, might like to meet with the explan- 
ation, I will give it. The Avhole explanation of this pertinacity 
on the part of the South, is to be found in the fact that she is 
determined to maintain slavery, and that she despairs of main- 
taining it, unless she shall erect herself into a nation, independent 
of every other nation. The South saw slavery cast out of all 
Europe, and all American slavery except her own to be tottering. 
She saw too, that the North was every day becoming more en- 
lightened in regard to slavery, and therefore more hostile to it. 
Hence the great and absorbing question with her was — what she 
should do most effectually to insulate herself, and shut out those 
ever-swelling floods of anti-slavery sentiment, and anti-slavery 
influence, which were constantly pouring in upon her. Her nat- 
ural decision was to build up about herself the high and, as she 
hoped, impervious walls of a new nationality. The North she 
regarded as already abolitionized. To remain, therefore, in con- 
nection with her, was to allow herself, also, to be abolitionized. 
Hence she broke off from the North. For what else would she 
have consented to break off from it, and to lose the incalculable 
advantage of being a part of this great nation ? 

In all this, which I have now referred to, and I know not that 
there is any thing more of this bearing to refer to, has the South 
suffered intolerable oppressions ? Nay, has she suffered any op- 
pression ? None whatever. In our national affairs, she was gen- 
erally allowed to have her own way. I admit that we wronged 
her : but never, even in the slightest degree, did we oppress her. 
And the only way in which she was ever wronged by us, was our 
shameful indulgence of both her tyrannous spirit, and her greed 
of place and power. Surely, surely, then, the North is not to be 
accused of provoking the rebellion. Surely, surely, then, the 
South is the guilty, and the only guilty party in the rebellion. 
And surely, surely, then, the North can not, without making her- 
self very criminal, and very base, vote for the candidate of those, 
who hold the North, and not the South, to be the guilty party. 
But it may be said that their candidate (General McClellan) does 
not hold in this respect, as they do who nominated him. If he 
does not, then is he very unfortunate in being misrepresented by 
his friends, who put him forth as the representative of themselves, 
and who, it is fair to suppose, knew him thoroughly when they 
did so. Since the Northern men, who espouse the cause of the 
South, single out McClellan for their standard-bearer, it would be 
madness in us, who cleave to the cause of the North, to believe 



GERHIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 29 

him to bo with us and to vote for him. If lie is indeed a North- 
side man, nevertheless, since they, who know him, have set him 
forth as a South-side one, he can not complain of us ibr not voting 
for him. He can complain 1 nil of his friends, who have misrepre- 
sented him, and whose misrepresentations justify us in withhold- 
ing our votes from him. But we are cited to McClellan's letter 
of acceptance. That it is a letter of acceptance is of itself suffi- 
cient to disentitle him to the vote of every loyal man. That he 
is the candidate of a Convention composed of the open enemies 
of that cause for which his country is pouring out her treasure 
and her blood — composed of those whose war is upon the North 
only — is surely reason enough why no intelligent friend of that 
cause can give him his vote. But we will look further into this 
letter. I said that the North is divided between those who hold 
the North, and those who hold the South to be the guilty party. 
On which side does McClellan's letter place him ? It spares the 
South, but it abounds in inculpations ©f the North. The indirect 
and unmanly way in which he makes, or rather insinuates his 
charges against the Government, was doubtless intended to ren- 
der them more effective. It will, however, serve but to denote 
the lack of an open, brave, and manly spirit in their author. He 
has nothing to say of the barbarity with which the South con- 
ducts the war — murdering fresh captives — or, if sparing them, 
sparing thousands to be tortured in sjoirit and body, thousands 
to be starved to death, and (worst fate of all !) thousands to be 
sunk in slavery. Nothing of all this does he say. But, in his 
characteristic, cowardly, roundabout way, he accuses the North 
of the high crime of perverting the war. I grant that there have 
been a few instances in which anti-slavery zealots have shown 
their disposition to pervert it, and innumerable instances in which 
pro-slavery zealots have shown the like. Just here let me say, 
that miserable men are all they who, when monsters arc striking 
parricidal blows at the country, are incapable of making a single 
and square issue with those monsters, and are intent on mixing 
up with the one question of putting down these monsters condi- 
tions in behalf of or against Slavery, Habeas Corpus, or something 
else. " Down with the rebellion, come what will of it to any of 
our schemes, or theories, or interests," is. the voice of wisdom. 
Moreover, if slavery or anti-slavery, this or that political [tarty, 
this or that church, shall be found to stand in the way of putting 
it down, let them all be swept out of the way. Nothing is worth 
preserving, that stands in the way of putting down so unmitigat- 
ed and unparalleled a wickedness as the rebellion. When it 
shall have been put down, will be time to decide (and not till 
then will it be time so much as to consider it) whether the safety 
of the nation shall call for the weakening or strengthening of 
slavery, for its utter annihilation, or for overspreading the whole 
land with it. In the mean time, use slavery, or apprenticeship, 
or any thing else in whatever way you can use it most effectually 
to the crushing of the rebellion: and let all heads, all hearts, 



30 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

and all hands find their one thought, one feeling, and one work to 
that end. 

I admitted that there were instances of a disposition to per- 
vert the war. But by far the most signal of all the instances of 
the actual perverting of the war, and of perverting it even to the 
direct help of the rebels, is that of McClellan himself. He it was, 
who began his mediating military career — his half-one-way and 
half-the-other way generalship — with a proclamation of safety to 
the foe at that very point where the foe was most vulnerable and 
most alarmed. He it was, who assured the slaveholders, that he 
would guard their homes, their wives and children, from servile 
insurrection, and who thereby left them free to go forth to swell 
rebellion's battling hosts. And now for him whose duty, instead 
of ministering peace and security to the enemy, was to leave him 
appalled and paralyzed with every possible terror — and now for 
him, I say, to throw out in his cowardly way his utterly false 
charge that the Government has perverted the war, is enough to 
make the soul of every honest man boil over with indignation. 
Very far am I from saying that McClellan should have favored 
servile insurrection. But I do say that he should have left the 
slaveholders to all their fears from their slaves, and to all that 
occupation of their thoughts and time which those fears called 
for. I add that his relieving them of those fears and of that oc- 
cupation, was treason to his country — was even literal treason — 
for it was " adhering to her enemies, giving them aid and com- 
fort." 

McClellan professes great love of the Constitution and the 
Union. I love them. The costliest gift whereby I might contri- 
bute to preserve them I have not withheld. Both in peace, and 
in war, abundantly with both lips and pen, I have opposed even 
the slightest alteration in the Constitution. But whilst McClellan 
sees our Government making war upon the Union and the Consti- 
tution, I see no other war upon them than that which his own 
party and its Southern allies are waging. 

I said that I love the Constitution. But I love my country 
more. I would use the Constitution to save the country. But 
the Democrats juggle with it to destroy the country. Instance 
their incessant knavish talk about the constitutional rights and 
the reserved rights of the seceded States. Whereas the plain 
fact is, that those States did, in seceding, forfeit every right but 
the right to be punished. France, were England to conquer her, 
would have no right to the present political subdivisions of her 
soil : and the South, being a rebel, and the guiltiest of all rebels, 
will, if conquered, be more emphatically destitute of all right to 
hers. I would hope that her old State lines might be recognized: 
but this would be for her conqueror alone to determine. The 
theory so industriously and injuriously and traitorously inculcat- 
ed by the Democrats — that what were rights before the rebel- 
lion, must be rights after it, ay, and all the way through it — is 
the veriest nonsense. I have instanced the talk of the Democrats 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 31 

at one point. Instance, too, their incessant knavish talk about 
carrying on the war according to the Constitution. They know 
that the nation, which should try to carry on war according to a 
Constitution, would certainly perish : and hence, indeed ia it that 
they are continually urging the Administration to make this alto- 
gether unprecedented experiment. Our Constitution does not at- 
tempt the folly of prescribing the way in which we shall carry on 
war. The simple truth in this matter, (and they are either silly 
or disingenuous who deny it,) is that war must ever be a law 
unto itself, and that no other law can meet its exigencies. 

I said that I love the Union. My whole heart is set on its res- 
toration : and therefore have I done all I could to compel the 
South to return to it. I say compel, because I believe she must 
be compelled. During all the years of the rebellion McClellan 
and his party have constantly held that the South would return to 
the Union, if the North would prepare the way. But the South. 
has as constantly held to the contrary. For the reasons I have 
already given, the South will not consent to return. She has set 
up her new nation with slavery for its boasted corner-stone ; and 
she will not, but upon compulsion, belong again to a nation of 
another kind. There is, I admit, one way in whieh the South 
might possibly be induced to return to the Union. That way 
McClellan and his party know ; and that way I have not the 
slightest doubt they are willing, and no small share of them eager, 
to prepare. Should the North consent to set up slavery within 
all her borders and to put, as slavery requires, the claim of prop- 
erty in man on the same footing with the claim of property in 
horses and hogs, the South might possibly consent to return to 
the Union. The Democratic party knows that this is the only 
way in which she would consent to return, and this way the 
Democratic party would open to her. 

The pernicious cry that our sole legitimate object in prosecut- 
ing the Avar is to save the Constitution and the Union, is, of 
course, abundantly echoed in McClellan's letter. The declarations 
both in and out of Congress in the early stages of the war that 
our one work was to restore the Constitution and the Union, I 
am not disposed to criticise. But very unwise was it to repeat 
such declarations, after the rebellion had taken on its wide dimen- 
sions, and was putting forth its gigantic and appalling efforts. 
Then our one work was to put down the rebellion ; and, if need 
be, at whatever expense to Constitution or Union. The forms of 
the Constitution and the terms of the Union had then become of 
comparatively little account. Nay, the rebellion, greatest of all 
the crimes earth ever knew, must go down, though all do go 
down with it. Alas ! how unreasonable and insane for the enemies 
of the rebellion at such a time as this, when the common work 
of putting it down claims the. hands of all, and all the interest of 
all, to be making issues between themselves about the character 
of the Constitution, or the conditions of the Union ! Put down 
the rebellion ! Put it down now, and unconditionally ! Matters 



32 GERRIT SMITH ON" THE REBELLION. 

about the Constitution and the Union can be adjusted afterward. 
This Democratic shouting for the Constitution and the Union, is 
but to call us off" from crushing the rebellion. 

I notice McClellan's pathetic appeal for the votes of the soldiers 
and sailors. What an impudent affectation in him to profess re- 
gard for these brave and devoted men, whilst he worms his way 
up to the platform, in which the cause they are battling, bleeding, 
and dying for, is condemned, and its abandonment called for ! I 
say its abandonment — for such is the only possible meaning of the 
immediate armistice or " cessation of hostilities," which the plat- 
form demands. If, as President Lincoln's favorite story says, it 
is " no time to swap horses when crossing the stream," so it is no 
time to stop horses when crossing it. To stop at that critical mo- 
ment is to expose all to go doAvn-stream. For us to stop the war 
at this time, is to abandon the war, and to make vain all Ave have 
sacrificed in prosecuting it. Moreover, it is to abandon it when 
we are on the very eve of accomplishing its one object — the over- 
throw of the rebellion. I said it was an impudent affectation 
in McClellaii, whilst indorsing the platform which insults the 
brave men who are fighting our battles, to be professing regard 
for them. So is it for him to be professing that regard whilst he 
places himself on that platform by the side of a Vice-Presidential 
candidate, whose sympathies with the South are as open as his 
own are sly ! This candidate, for whom also is necessarily every 
vote cast for McClellan, and who, if elected, becomes in no very 
improbable event, the President of the United States, is the 
George H. Pendleton, who is a member of Congress, and who in 
that capacity steadily votes against supplies of men and moneys 
and taxes for carrying on the war. He is the same Pendleton, 
who with but nineteen others voted against censuring Harris for 
using treasonable language on the floor of Congress, and who 
with but fifteen others voted against the resolution, which de- 
clares the duty of crushing the rebellion. Greatly mistaken is 
McClellan if, with his unenviable military reputation and his base 
and guilty political connections, he hopes to catch our discerning 
soldiers and sailors with such chaff" as his heartless praises of them. 
They read him " like a book." They will turn their backs upon 
him ; and will give their approving faces and their approving 
votes to the honest Lincoln, who deals in no twattle about the 
Constitution and Union, and who speaks what he means ; to the 
patriotic and earnest Lincoln, who believes in the cause for which 
our soldiers and sailors are contending, who does his utmost to rein- 
force them, and who scouts as spurious any peace with the rebels, 
which shall precede their unconditional surrender. This attempt 
of McClellan to get the votes of the armed defenders of the 
country, reminds us of the similar attempt of the Convention that 
nominated him. In one of its resolutions, the Democratic party 
is made to promise to take " care " of " the soldiery." Impu- 
dent and insulting promise ! Undoubtedly " the soldiery " will, 
in turn, take care of the Democratic party. It will take care of 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 33 

it at the approaching election : and when the war is over at tin- 
South, and the day of reckoning for Northern rascality shall have 
come, it will again take oare of the Northern traitors whose sym- 
pathies have made strong the hands of Southern traitors, and 
who have in this wise greatly prolonged' the war, and greatly 
swollen the sum of the sufferings of our army. 

I spoke of McClellaifs worming his way up to the platform, 
which the Convention prepared tor him and his fellow peace man 
to stand on. He did not- mount it like a had bold man, bat crawl- 
ed upon it like a had timid one. His timidity, however, was in 
no wise because of a disagreement between the platform and his 
own views — for he virtually says that there is no disagreement 
between them when he says : " Believing that the views here ex- 
pressed are those of the Convention and the people you represent, 
I accept the nomination." He believes that the Convention and 
its constituents agree with him for the sufficient reason that, hav- 
ing read their platform, he finds himself agreeing with them. It 
is well that the traitorous and infamous platform is so outspoken, 
since in this wise, inasmuch as McClellan does himself believe that 
he and its framers mean the same thing, we are enabled to put 
confident interpretations upon the double-meaning phraseologies 
in his cunning and cowardly letter. Oh no! McClellan's shyness 
of the platform was in no degree because he dissented from it — 
for he did not dissent from it. It was solely because he feared 
that his open, plump indorsement of a peace platform would leave 
him no votes but those of the Peace Democrats. 

I have not failed to notice the patriotic, brave, and warlike words 
with which McClellan has sprinkled his letter. Inasmuch, how- 
ever, as they are at entire variance with other parts of it and with 
the obvious spirit and aim of the whole ; and inasmuch, also, as 
they are repugnant to both the entire body and soul of that plat- 
form wdiich by his acceptance of his nomination, as well as 
otherwise, he expresses his approval of; and inasmuch, moreover, 
as these cunningly flung-in words are out of all harmony with the. 
words and deeds of that other George who stands beside him, and 
of the unprincipled party which nominated them — inasmuch as all 
this is so, I make no account of them. I cast the affected words 
aside, declaring them to be, as the lawyers would say, void for 
inconsistency. I could wish that these words might cost 
McClellan the loss of the votes of some Peace Democrats. But I 
have no idea that they will. These Peace Democrats know their 
man, and they arc as sure of their one George as of the other. 
Hence, whilst nothing McClellan can say in favor of a war policy, 
can shake their confidence in his purpose for a Southern and pro- 
slavery peace, the more he shall say in favor of such policy the. 
more will he rise in their esteem — all that he so says passing to the- 
credit of his cunning in catching the votes of War Democrats. 

I am not ignorant that the Daily News and Metropolitan, Hec- 
ord, Vallandigham and other such, have come out against McClel- 
lan. But they will be for him when election comes. Why 
3 



34 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

should they not be ? Why should they not trust him ? Like 
them he slanders the Government and the North. Like them, in- 
stead of ever saying so much as one word against slavery, he is con- 
stantly proving that his great concern is to save it. It is true 
that their treason is more open and noisy than his, but his is nev- 
ertheless as real and earnest as theirs. The coming out of Peace 
Democrats against McClellan is most likely but part of the game. 
Their showing a want of confidence in him is expected to increase 
the confidence of War Democrats in him. But even if there are 
a few Peace Democrats, who, because of the warlike words in his 
letter, do not like to vote for him, they nevertheless will vote for 
him. Such fellows are always either coaxed or whipped in. Let not 
the friends of the country flatter themselves that McClellan, who 
is in heart just what the Peace Democrats could wish him to be, 
will lose so much as one of their votes. 

I pass on to inquire why it is, since the South is so obviously 
the guilty party in this war, so large a share of the Northern peo- 
ple goes with her. It is because of the power of party. It was 
long ago that the Democratic party came into alliance with slav- 
ery. I do not believe that it was, as a prominent politician in ef- 
fect declared it to be, a "natural" alliance. In the early days of 
the Republic the parties, morally considered, were not essentially 
different. But its espousal of the pro-slavery policy wrought a 
sad change in the Democratic party. Its good men saw it and 
lamented it ; and from time to time many of them quit it. When 
at length slavery, having failed to accomplish its ends by politi- 
cal, commercial, and ecclesiastical agencies, burst forth in rebellion, 
(for the rebellion is neither more nor less than slavery in arms,) 
then, as was to be expected, there was a great exodus from the 
Democratic party. Thousands of that party, who had been guil- 
ty of falling in with its concessions to slavery, hoping thereby not 
only to help their party but to preserve the quiet and promote 
the prosperity of the country, could no longer remain in their pro- 
slavery party after slavery had undertaken the violent dismem- 
berment of the nation. Nevertheless, the Democratic party did not 
become weak. As is natural, those who clung to it, became more 
than ever devoted to slavery : and the more pro-slavery the par- 
ty became, the more attractive was it to the aristocratic element 
in our population. For aristocracy, not in England only, but the 
world over, must ever be in sympathy with slaveholding. Con- 
tempt of the toiling poor, black or white, bond or free, is common 
to both. Moreovei*, as the Democratic jDarty increased in devo- 
tion to slavery, it grew in favor with those ignorant and debased 
multitudes, who love slavery because they love to have a stratum 
of humanity still lower than their own. Again, these multitudes 
go for slavery because they are taught by the demagogues, who 
get their votes, that the colored people not in slavery are their 
rivals for the humble forms of labor. 

The Democratic party, now so openly and shamelessly the ser- 
vant of the slave-power as to be at work either to break up the 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. oO 

nation or to bring all parts of it equally under the reign of slav- 
ery, has long been the servant of that power. Instance its innu- 
merable mobs to prevent or break up the discussion of slavery. 
To embarrass the Government and help the rebels, it has become 
the champion of the right of free speech. Nevertheless, its 
Amos Kendall, who is now so conspicuously on the side of free 
speech, went so far the other way as to let slavery stalk into the 
Post-Office Department, and wield its mighty machinery against 
free speech. Even our bland and gentle Governor Seymour, who is 
now so distressfully concerned for the safety of free speech, was, 
but little more than three years ago, planning in conclave with kin- 
dred spirits the forcible prevention of a sjieech against slavery. 

That the Democratic party should, even now, when all Christen- 
dom is giving up slavery, still cling to it, is not unaccountable. 
Its whole life has come to be in slavery: and it knows that when 
slavery dies it must itself die. Hence to expect the Democratic 
party to give up slavery, is to expect it to give up itself: and the 
political party has not yet been which will consent to give up it- 
self. 

The Democratic party is, in short, neither more nor less than the 
Northern wing of the rebellion : and the same spirit of opposition 
to universal freedom and to the lifting up of oppressed and de- 
graded humanity, which imbues the Southern rebels, imbues the 
Northern rebels also. That such a party should do what it can 
to hinder the putting down of the rebellion is only what might 
be expected. But that even so guilty a party should taunt us 
with incompetence to carry on the war and with lack of success 
in it is a meanness and hypocrisy, which it surely did not need to 
add to its stupendous wickedness. How multiplied are its hin- 
derances to our successful prosecution of the war ! It discourages 
enlistments. It opposes drafts, and goes so far as to make them 
occasions for plundering and murderous riots. It impeaches the 
national credit, and does all it can to shake confidence and pre- 
vent investments in Government bonds. It slanders and vilifies 
our upright and able President and his upright and able Cabinet. 
Whilst sullen over the victories achieved by our army, it exagger- 
ates and rejoices in its defeats. I need specify no further. 
Enough is it to add that its crimes and character are summed up 
in the crowning infamy of a Convention, which built that traitor- 
ous and hypocritical platform, and put upon it the two Georges, 
who are precisely suited to it and to each other. How sad that 
the men, who are doing these things, are even too depraved and 
too infatuated to pause and consider what a heritage of shame 
they are preparing for their children. 

The friends of the country must not allow themselves to be dis- 
couraged by all that its Northern and therefore its worst enemies 
have done and arc still doing to discourage them. They must 
continue to believe that a cause, so good as is their cause, will 
not fail. They must still have faith in God, and still believe that 
He will not suffer the hard-earned treasure and righteous blood, 



36 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

which we have poured out in the war to be but waste. They 
must still believe that our brave and dear soldiers and sailors, 
who have died or been crippled in this war, have not died nor been 
crippled in vain. They must still believe that the sorrows of our 
scores of thousands of bereaved families will find their soothing 
and recompense in a nation of all its former boundaries and of far 
more than all its former justice, freedom, and prosperity. 

This nation will live. It has given ample proof that it can 
withstand both foreign and domestic foes, both Northern and 
Southern rebels. This nation will live to see herself and the 
whole continent free from oppressors — not from slaveholders 
only but from imperial despots also. The Democratic party will 
not much longer, by weakening and disgracing us, encourage the 
designs of the Napoleons and Maximilians. For the Democratic 
party will soon die. As life is the law of righteousness, so death 
is the law of wickedness ; and the wickedness of the Democratic 
party is fast nearing that extreme limit where wickedness, all 
ripe and rotten, dies of itself. 

Let us be of good cheer. Atlanta is already ours. So also is 
the bay of Mobile. Very soon we shall have conquered two or 
three other important points ; and then but a brief, feeble, flicker- 
ing life will remain to the rebellion. What is scarcely less import- 
ant, the election will also be ours. And then, thanks to God, the 
Democratic party, that ugliest of all the enemies of human rights 
and human happiness, will be dead. The name may survive ; but 
the party that shall wear it will be as unlike to the present Dem- 
ocratic party, as day is to darkness. 

Peteeboko, September 14, 1864. 



LETTER TO MR. KIRKLAJNTD. 



Peteeboro, September 24, 1864. 
Charles P. Kirkland, Esq., New- York: 

My Friend and College-Mate: I have read your Address 
on the "Destiny of our Country," and I thank you for sending it 
to me. Parts of it I like, and parts of it I dislike. 

1st. I like your clear and forcible view of the cause of the re- 
bellion. Entirely do I agree with you that the one cause of it is 
slavery, and the anti-democratic, ambitious, aristocratic spirit 
which it produces. 

2d. Your flings at the abolitionists I do not like. Your grand- 
children will not like them. For in their day when the land shall 
be redeemed from the debauchment of slavery, and " abolitionist " 
shall have become the most honored and popular of all the names 
in it, there will be deep regret that beloved ancestors, who should 
themselves have been zealous abolitionists, knew no better than to 
despise abolitionists. It has ever been so, that the prophets are 
not recognized by their generation. Those were not, who warned 
the Jews of the coming ruin. Nor were those, who foretold the 
sufferings and sorrows, that would surely befall this nation, should 
she persist in oppression. Alas ! not even now, when their abun- 
dant prophecies are being so abundantly and so horridly fulfilled, 
have you, my old friend, a heart to do them honor, or even to 
spare them from derision and reprobation ! You denounce their 
fanaticism and couple it with the Satanic fanaticism of the rebels. 
You make fun of their fewness ; and tell that their candidate for 
Governor of this State got but five thousand votes. He and his 
associates labored for many years to induce the people of the 
North to withhold their votes from slaveholders and pro-slavery 
men. Oh ! had they but succeeded ! There would have been no 
rebellion then ! It was the pro-slavery voters of the North that 
encouraged the South in her pro-slavery schemes : and but for 
her reliance on those voters, she would not have ventured on re- 
bellion. Let but our infamously pro-slavery and traitorous Dem- 
ocratic party desert her, and she would quickly desert her then 
hopeless cause. Nay, but for her hope (vain hope !) of McClel- 
lan's election, she would regard her present straits as desperate, 
and think it time to give up the contest. 



38 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

By the way, your great contempt of the abolitionists has kept 
you quite ignorant of their history. For instance, you suppose 
that those five thousand were all opponents of the Constitution. 
Probably not one of them was. Their candidate had never writ- 
ten nor spoken a word against the Constitution : and few persons 
had written or spoken so much for it. Improbable, is it, therefore, 
that any of them would have voted for him had they not, like him, 
been for the Constitution — for the Constitution just as it is. I 
admit that there are abolitionists who dislike the Constitution. 
William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips are such : and 
where shall we look for men more intellectual or pure than Mr. 
Garrison and Mr. Phillips ? 

3d. I like your saying that our first work " is to crush the re- 
bellion." But what men have engaged in this work more earn- 
estly than the abolitionists ? Nay, is it not true that the negroes 
and the abolitionists North and South, are the only classes whose 
zeal against the rebellion is never called in question ? No time 
then is this for a patriot (and you are a patriot) to be holding up 
the abolitionists to hatred and ridicule. On the contrary, we 
should stand by all those who, in this hour of her peril stand by 
the country. 

4th. I dislike your looking beyond this work of crushing the 
rebellion. All the true friends of the country are fellow-laborers 
in this work. But beyond it are things about which they will dis- 
agree — or at least about which they would now disagree. These 
things should therefore be left until Ave come to them. To bring 
them up now, is to impair our indispensable unity. Moreover, we 
are too fully occupied with the cares of the present to be justified 
in adding to them what is in the future, and what we shall best 
understand when, in the order of events, we shall have reached it. 
As you now feel, the preserving of the entire letter of the Constitu- 
tion would be your first care after the rebellion had been put 
down. But another man might think that his first care after it, 
would be the setting up of new securities against further rebel- 
lious outbreaks. The salvation of a country rather than the sal- 
vation of a paper would be his paramount concern. Again, you 
would, as you now think, hold that the conquered rebels must 
still be in the Union. But another person would hold that it 
would be for their conqueror to decide the point — to recognize 
them as in the Union if he pleased, or out of it if that were his 
preference. Again, you probably believe that, on their professed 
re-submission to the Constitution, the rebel States would, of ne- 
cessity, return to the enjoyment of all constitutional rights. But 
another believes that, when they rebelled, they forfeited entirely 
and forever every constitutional right : and that, if we conquer 
them, they will be as absolutely at our disposal as if they had 
never been under the Constitution — nay, as absolutely as if they 
had been a part of Canada or Mexico, instead of our own country. 
To bring forward one more illustration. You would allow such 
acts of the President in this war as were performed in the ca- 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 39 

pacity of Head of the Army and Navy to be submitted to the Su- 
preme Court of the United States. But another would differ from 
you — and this, too, notwithstanding both the President and Sec- 
retary of State are with you at that point. lie might admit that 
a local insurrection, affecting a county, or even so serious as to 
spread its disturbing influence over a State, could and therefore 
should be met by constitutional law only — by that law of which 
that Court is the acknowledged interpreter. But he would not 
admit the sufficiency of that law, nor therefore the jurisdiction of 
that Court, in all that arises in such a war as this, which is upon 
our hands — a war in which our foe is a people of territory and 
resources enough to make them a mighty nation — a war which 
was scarcely begun ere several nations accorded belligerent rights 
to that foe, and which, very soon after, we ourselves could not 
withhold. The conduct of such a war he would bring under the 
broad principles of international law. Or rather, he would say 
that no written law can provide for the exigencies of such a Avar — 
and that the war must be a law unto itself. Moreover, he might 
put some perplexing questions to you. He might ask you — why, 
if the President's military acts can be reviewed by the Supreme 
Court, General Grant's and General Sherman's can not also. He 
might ask you whether you hold it to be competent for that Court 
to entertain the complaints of this and that man for being com- 
pelled to give up their houses and barns to soldiers and soldiers' 
horses. Observe that I do not say which of you is right. Per- 
haps, both of you, when our nation shall, in her present perilous 
journey, have reached these questions, will find your present 
views of them somewhat modified. Do not, dear Kirkland, be 
impatient to commit the people to your views of these questions. 
Leave it to that traitorous band, who at Chicago made their trai- 
torous platform, and put upon it their traitorous candidates, to 
embarrass the Administration, and distract the people and hinder 
their undivided and effective prosecution of the war by the pre- 
mature discussion of these questions. 

Trusting that your heart is set on the election of the honest and 
able patriot, Mr. Lincoln ; and that neither McClellan, nor any 
other candidate who belongs to the Northern wing of the rebel- 
lion, finds any favor in your sight, 

I remain your friend, 

Geukit Smith. 



TO THE RANK AND FILE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 



Peteeboro, October 20, 1864. 
To the Masses of the Democratic Party: 

I have faith that you will hear me — first, because I am an old 
man, and past being suspected of seeking personal political advan- 
tage ; second, because, being no partisan, and having never be- 
longed to the Democratic, Whig, nor Republican party, I am not 
liable to the charge of seeking party objects. 

You, like all multitudes of men, love justice and love your coun- 
try. Nevertheless, this does not assure me that, in the approach- 
ing election, you will be faithful to either. For, trained as you 
are to implicit confidence in the leaders of your party, there is but 
too much reason to fear that you will follow them even now, when 
to follow them is to be their instruments in outraging righteous- 
ness and ruining your country. 

In the breasts of politicians where ambition, the greed of gain 
and the lust of place and power have usually so much play, justice 
and patriotism are apt to become weak. But in the breasts of 
your political leaders these virtues seem to have become abso- 
lutely extinct. Step by step they have gone on courting and con- 
ceding to the slave power, until at last they are so debauched as 
to be no longer capable of withholding any thing from its claims. 
Whea the South at the instigation of that power broke out in this 
rebellion against a nation, which had done her no harm, save the 
harm of weakly and wickedly indulging her and succumbing to 
her, these leaders were as yet able to make, or at least to seem to 
make, some resistance. But now they have got so far along in 
the way of evil, as distinctly to take the side of the rebellion \_ 
as openly and shamelessly to join the rebels, and employ every art 
to induce you also to join them. 

For proof that your leaders have gone over to the enemy, I 
refer not to the obvious fiict that they are at work with him to 
defame, embarrass, and destroy our Government ; to the obvious 
fact that the spirit of the Democratic press in Philadelphia, New- 
York, Boston, and elsewhere, is one with the spirit of the Southern 
press ; to the obvious fact that your leaders rejoice with the South 
in her successes, and sorrow with her in her defeats ; to the ob- 
vious fact that, whilst the South shoots and starves our soldiers, 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 41 

your lenders, in denouncing the drafts and in various other ways, 
hinder the replenishing of our wasted armies; and, by impeaching 
the credit and cheapening the bonds of the Government, enfeeble 
its prosecution of the war ; nor to the obvious fact that they are 
equally intent with the South on upholding slavery, which is the 
one cause of the rebellion. Nor have I reference to the obvious 
fact that the South identities the cause of the Democratic party 
with her own cause, and that whilst she looks to our coming elec- 
tion as fraught Avith triumph or ruin to her rebellion, she also 
regards her own fortune as decisive of the fate of that party. 
Says the Charleston Courier: " Our success in battle insures the 
success of McClellan. Our failure will inevitably lead to his 
defeat." 

But there is evidence far more conclusive than any or all of this 
which I have cited that the leaders of your party have identified 
themselves with the rebellion. God grant that they may not suc- 
ceed in identifying you also with it! Go with me to the Chicago 
Convention. Look at the platform which it built, or rather which 
it adopted — for it was probably mainly built on the British side 
of the Niagara, if not indeed in Richmond. It says nothing 
against the South. It abounds in complaints of the North. It is 
at peace with the South, and at war with the North. It pro- 
nounces the war on our part a failure — and this, too, when the 
South is reduced to far less than half the territory she began the 
rebellion with, and our final success seems so near at hand. It calls 
for the stopping of the Avar. But a poorer time is it to stop than 
"to swap horses, Avhen crossing the stream." More is the danger 
that they will be SAvept doAvn-stream. To stop the war iioav, is to 
forego the object of the Avar — the deliverance of the nation from 
threatened death. To stop it now, is to lose all the blood and 
treasure it has cost. To stop it iioav, is to make vain and to leave 
unrecompensed the bereavements and desolations, which tens of 
thousands of our families have suffered from it. And for what 
end could the war be stopped now, but to abandon it and to leave 
the rebellion to triumph ? Is it said, that opportunity will thus be 
afforded for the calm and wise consideration of the questions 
between the North and South ? But there are no questions bctAveen 
them, and there can be none until the South has laid down her 
arms. Until then, she has no right to be heard, and Ave have no 
right to hear her. Until then, neither party has the right to pro- 
pose conditions of peace. The South took up arms without cause. 
She must lay them doAvn Avithout conditions. Until then, any nego- 
tiations with her — even such quasi negotiations, as our excellent 
President has in the Aveakness of his goodness countenanced — 
would be at the expense of dishonoring justice and compromising 
the dignity and sacredness of nationality. General McClellan 
thinks " we should exhaust all the resources of statesmanship to 
secure peace." But until peace there is nothing for statesmanship 
to act on. Until then, it must be generalship instead of states- 
manship, fighting instead of negotiation. Afterward many ques- 



42 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

tions will arise in the province of statesmanship : and I trust that 
our Government will be disposed to treat them all justly and, 
where need be, generously also. 

It will held by some that there is one question between the 
North and the South, even while they are at war with each other. 
It is that of exchanging prisoners. But I do not see that even 
here there is room for a question. By the laws of war neither 
party to the war can be required to consent to an exchange of 
prisoners. Each may retain all its prisoners to the end of the 
war. If the South does, for any reasons, value her black prison- 
ers too highly to consent to exchange them for her white men in 
our hands, so be it, and we have no right to complain. If she con- 
sents to however limited an exchange of prisoners, black or white, 
we are to thank her, and for humanity's sake to rejoice. The 
wrong treatment of prisoners is another subject, and one with 
which this should not be complicated, nor on which it should in 
the slightest degree be made to depend. If the South shall abuse 
any of her prisoners — if, for instance, she shall starve or kill, or 
what is worse, sink them in slavery, it is for us and us only to de- 
cide what shall be the return or retaliation for the outrage. All 
this, however, has nothing to do with the exchange of prisoners. 

But to return from this digression. We were speaking of the 
Chicago Platform. One of the things, which the Convention did 
after adopting it, was to put George H. Pendleton upon it. Pre- 
eminently fitted to it is he. Vallandigham himself could not be 
more so. From the first, Pendleton has been openly on the side 
of the rebels. On the floor of Congress in January, 1861, when 
several States had already seceded, he denied our right to compel 
the return of a seceding State. In harmony with this denial his 
subsequent votes have been against condemning the rebellion and 
against providing means for carrying on the war to suppress it. 
This is the rebel, whom your leaders would have you try to make 
Vice-President. Can you try it without becoming rebels your- 
selves ? He is the exponent of the Chicago Platform. In the 
light of his speeches and votes, whatever is obscure or doubtful 
in that platform becomes clear and certain. Can you consent to 
commit the Democratic party to a platform so entirely in the in- 
terest of the rebellion ? 

You perhaps Avonder that I have omitted to mention the nom- 
ination of McClellan. But I was describing and illustrating the 
Chicago Platform : and his nomination has nothing to do with 
that peace platform. His name was chosen, not to represent 
the platform, but as the bait for catching the votes of War Dem- 
ocrats. It was a ti'ick — as mere a trick as the Baltimore Conven- 
tion would have been guilty of, had it baited for peace votes by 
putting a non-resistant Quaker on its thorough Avar platform. I 
grant that the nomination of McClellan Avas a very cunning trick. 
For Avhilst, on the one hand, his having had a part in the war 
would commend him to the votes of War Democrats, that part, 
on the other hand, was so equivocal, so tender, and adA r antageous 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION". 43 

to the enemy, as not to deter Peace Democrats from voting for 
him. 

And now, what are the arguments, which the leaders of the Dem- 
ocratic party, its orators and presses, employ to bring you to aban- 
don the cause of your country and to identify yourselves with the 
rebels ? Only two which they greatly rely on, or which it is 
worth while for me to notice. The first is the perversion of the 
war from the putting down of the rebellion to the putting down 
of slavery. The second is the cost of carrying on the war — the 
cost in money and the cost in life. 

First. I do not deny that one-idea abolitionists desired the per- 
version. But I do deny that their desire was gratified. From 
first to last, the Government has withstood all the clamor and all 
the influence for the perversion. 

The leading doctrine of that admirable letter of August twenty- 
second, 18G2, from President Lincoln to Horace Greeley, in which 
he shows his clear understanding of the limitations upon his mil- 
itary power is, that he would emancipate slaves no farther than he 
sees it to be a necessity for saving his country. Surely, this doc- 
trine does not justify the charge of perverting the war. 

The President's Proclamation of September twenty-second, 
1862, sets out the declaration "that hereafter as heretofore the 
war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the 
constitutional relation," etc. No perversion of the war in this 
declaration. But this Proclamation contains a threat of Emanci- 
pation! Yes, but the threat is to be fulfilled only in case the 
rebels refuse to lay down their arms. Does such a threat pervert 
the war? So far from it, it is in the very line of the original and 
legitimate war. His Proclamation of January first, 1863, does, 
so far as it can, fulfill this threat. Did the fulfillment pervert the 
war ? Oh ! no. It weakened the foe and strengthened ourselves. 
It gave us new means for carrying on the war against him, and, 
like all our previous means for carrying it on, they have been faith- 
fully used to that one end. 

But your leaders tell you that the war has been perverted by 
bringing black men into the army. I doubt not that many of 
these black men arc inspired with the hope that the putting down 
of the rebellion will be the putting down of slavery. All the 
fiercer, therefore, will they fight to put clown the rebellion. Hence 
no perversion of the war need be feared at their hands : and so 
far from encouraging the cry of perversion, we should be thankful 
that scores of thousands of these brave and stalwart black men 
are found willing to help us release our country from the bloody 
grasp of rebels. Thankful should we be to these defenders of our 
homes that they save us from the necessity of defending them, 
ourselves. A hundred thousand black soldiers save fifty thousand 
Unionists and fifty thousand Democrats from being soldiers. I 
do not deny that it is a great trial to the Southern chivalry, with 
whom your leaders so tenderly sympathize, to have to fight with 
negroes. I do not deny that it must be very humiliating and ex- 



44 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

asperating to Southern gentlemen to find themselves confronted 
on the battle-field by their former slaves. But before taking up 
arms to destroy the best form of government the world ever saw 
and to dismember a nation that had never done them the least 
harm, they should have foreseen that, sooner than consent to per- 
ish under their parricidal blows, we would summon to our aid red 
and black as well as white men. Much and basely as we had, in 
the past, studied to please the slaveholders, they should have 
foreseen that when the alternative before us was to save their 
pride or save our country, we could not long hesitate which to 
choose. 

Second. The other argument of your leaders why you should 
abandon the war and join the rebels is, as I have said, the cost of 
carrying on the war. I admit the cost is great. Still is it not 
better for us to go through with the war, and to reach final vic- 
tory as we can do in a few months, and as a united North, un- 
cursed with disloyal demagogues and disloyal generals, could 
have done more than two years ago ? In that case we should 
have but our own debt to pay ; and no small share of that we 
should be enabled to pay from confiscation of the estates of the 
wealthy men involved in the rebellion. The possessions of the 
poor we would be too pitiful and generous to molest. But in the 
event of the success of the Democratic party at the coming elec- 
tion and of the consequent immediate stopping of the war, or in 
other words of the abandonment of the war, or in still other 
words, of the success of the rebellion, the doctrines of State sov- 
ereignty and State secession would be triumphant. Then the 
whole Democratic party would declare with George H. Pendleton 
that our Government has no right to coerce seceded States ; and 
then it would also declare that we are equitably bound to pay 
those States all th$ expense we have put them to in resisting our 
unconstitutional coercion. Thus, by giving up the war we should, 
instead of staying the increase of our debt, double it; and instead 
of our getting remuneration from the South, she would get re- 
muneration from the North. 

As to life — we would, it is true, stay the loss of it by stopping 
the war. But the war stopped now, or at any time before the 
rebellion is subdued, would speedily break out afresh, and lead to 
a sacrifice of life many fold greater than would be necessary to 
prosecute it to a decisive result from our present vantage-ground. 

I am not, however, willing to argue this jioint on this low 
ground only. I hold that we must, at whatever cost, carry on the 
war to final victory or final defeat. It is a case where we have 
no option, and no right to stop to count the cost. We must per- 
severe until we have subdued the rebellion, or been subdued by 
it. If need be, we must persevere until men and money and credit 
shall all fail us. Infinitely honorable would it be for our na- 
tion to exhaust herself and perish in her struggle to crush this 
most infernal of all rebellions. But infamous to the last degree, 
and forever would she be, were she to consent to prolong her life 



GERKIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION". 45 

by a compromise with the guiltiest of rebels and by recognizing 
their nationality alongside of her own. Our nation can afford to 
die an honorable death — but she can not afford to live a dishonor- 
able life. 

Your leaders say we can not pay our present debt. The min- 
eral wealth of the country is sufficient to pay it in thirty years. 
Our gold and silver mines will yield the present year more than 
a hundred millions of dollars. By the time we shall have reached 
the fourth or fifth year of peace, they will yield double this sum. 
Scarcely less will be the yield of our iron, copper, lead, tin, quick- 
silver, salt, and coal. 

Your leaders seek to alarm you by telling you that rich England 
groans under a debt scarcely twice as large as our own. How 
idle to compare England's productiveness with our own ! — little 
England with this nation, which stretches from sea to sea — little 
England that half a century hence will not have one third of the 
population we shall then have. Of course, I am not taking into 
the account her colonies. These gratify her pride and ambition ; 
but they do little toward helping her pay debts. Is her trade with 
them lucrative ? So would it be, were they not her colonies. 

And, to make our prospect the more gloomy and despairing, your 
leaders dwell on our town and county bounty-money burdens. But 
so far from regarding as burdens the bounties we give those who 
arm themselves for our defense, we should rejoice in their wealth- 
distributing and Avealth-equalizing ofiice. They take from those 
who have, to give to those who have not, and to those too, whose 
patriotic and perilous services can not be overpaid. What right- 
minded person does not rejoice when seeing those bounty-moneys 
procure homes for families who never before had homes ? — and 
when seeing these families lifted up for the first time to a comfort- 
able grade of living ? Your leaders speak of the aggregate of 
those bounty-moneys as so much that the nation has parted with 
and lost. But it is still in the nation to help pay her debts with — 
and what is more, it is in hands where it does far greater good 
than it did before. In this connection let me add that a very con- 
siderable share of the great debt, which the Government owes, is 
for profits, which have been realized in the contracts made with 
it and in the purchase of its bonds. These profits, like the bounty- 
moneys, are still in the nation, and, like them, will help the 
nation pay its debt. Moreover, it is these profits, which have, 
during the war, so stimulated the industry of the nation, and 
given such unprecedented prosperity to all its branches. 

But what, you will inquire, can be the motive of the Democratic 
leaders in bringing their party to the side of the rebellion ? I 
answer, that it is the same with that which prompted the rebel- 
lion — in other words, that the motive is to save slavery. The 
authors of the rebellion — of the greatest crime of all the nations 
and all the ages — saw that the progressive civilization of Christen- 
dom boded destruction to slavery. They saw that it was cast out 
of Europe ; that it was nearly extinct in her colonies ; that it was 



46 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION". 

tottering in Brazil ; and becoming more hateful in our Northern 
States. Hence they resolved to insulate themselves and their 
slavery. In order to keep fast, forever fast, the chains upon a 
race as innocent as hapless, they undertook to build up around 
both slaves and masters the Avails of a new nationality — walls so 
high that the outside and growing anti-slavery sentiment could 
not leap over — walls so impervious that it could not pass through. 
Herein and herein alone is the explanation of the rebellion. 

Now, as the slaveholders have their life — the life of their ease 
and luxury, and ambition, and tyranny — the life of all their 
habits — in slavery, so also the Democratic party had, from its 
long-continued alliance with slaveholders and long-continued 
dependence upon them, come to have its life in slavery. Hence 
the leaders of that party, though, at the first, quite generally 
opposed to the rebellion, came to sympathize with it as soon as 
they saw that its downfall involved the downfall of slavery. For, 
they well knew that when slavery should die, the Democratic 
party would also die. Blessed be God that slavery is to die ! 
Blessed be God that it is to die, if it be only that the most 
demoralizing and devilish of all the political parties, which ever 
cursed mankind, is to die with it ! The approaching election will 
cast into a common grave, and that grave too deep to allow of a 
resurrection, Slavery, Rebellion, and the Democratic party. 
Doubtless there will still be a Democratic party. But it will not 
be the devil which this one is — for it will be dissevered from 
slavery. 

I frequently see in the Democratic newspapers extracts from 
the speeches and writings of such men as Daniel S. Dickinson, 
Benjamin F. Butler, and Lyman Tremain. These extracts are to 
prove that they were once as pro-slavery as are the remaining 
leaders of the Democratic party. But this is as unreasonable and 
shameless as for remaining drunkards to reproach reformed 
drunkards with their former history and habits. For one, I honor 
and love such men as Dickinson and Butler and Tremain, and 
should be glad to see them advanced to higher and higher places 
of trust and power. For, notwithstanding they were, in common 
with the other leaders of their party, victims of the most abomin- 
able political education, they had conscience enough left to stand 
aghast at the culminating wickedness of their party, and to quit 
their party ; — or, if you prefer, involving them in personal as well 
as party guilt, conscience enough left to stand aghast at their 
own wickedness, and to repent of it and forsake it. Alas ! this 
pride of consistency ; this pride in never changing ! How vulgar 
and vicious and vile it is ! When will it be seen, that the duty 
of all of us — of even the best of us — is to be ever and ever 
changing, be it only toward the right ! "When will it be seen, 
that man is among his best and sublimest employments, when 
writing with his own finger condemnation upon his own erring 
and guilty past ! Dickinson and Butler and Tremain had the 
courage to change. They stepped upward, and saved themselves, 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 47 

and became saviours of their country. To remain where they 
were, would have been to remain destroyers of themselves and 
their country. 

I stated the arguments with which your leaders ply you, and 
by force of which they hope to bring you to the side of the 
rebels. The first one appeals to those prejudices against the black 
man, which they have so industriously and, alas ! so successfully 
cultivated in you. They hope that, under the sway of those 
strong prejudices, you would rather that the rebellion should 
triumph, than that the slave should go free. But have you not 
hated him long enough ? lie is denied all right to learning and 
honors and child and wife and himself and his earnings. And 
yet his despised black skin covers a heart as warm to all these 
relations and interests as does your own proud white one. Tell 
your leaders, I beseech you — your tempters and seducers — that 
their appeal to your hatred of the negro will be vain. Tell them 
that he has suffered long enough ; that you have hated and 
wronged him long enough ; and that you are more disposed to 
repent of your part in crushing him than to persist in it. Tell 
them, in a word, that you have come to believe more in your 
obligation to honor God and all the varieties of the human family 
than in your obligation to serve ambitious and greedy demagogues. 

The other argument which, I said, your leaders employ to bring 
you to join the rebels, is the cost of carrying on the war. Their 
hope of success at this point is in your selfishness and lack of 
patriotism. They flatter themselves that you had rather lose the 
country than have your property taxed to save it : and that, rather 
than let your sons go, or go yourselves into the hardships and 
perils of war, you Avould let the rebellion and slavery sweep over 
and blast the whole land. Disappoint them here also, I entreat, 
you. Tell them that of all the claims, which earth can make upon 
your property, that, which your imperiled country makes upon it, 
is paramount. Tell them that to be poor and yet have a country, 
is to be rich — whilst to be rich and yet to be stripped of country, 
is to be poor. Tell them, too, that you have laid your sons and 
yourselves upon the altar of your country, and that you count 
death in her service not as dreadful, but as blessed. 

How elevating and ennobling is this war to all who have a 
heart to go forth to its unselfish, patriotic, and sublime duties! 
But how sinking and shriveling is it to all those who shrink from 
these duties, and prefer to cower in their cowardice, and to shut 
themselves in the shell of their selfishness ! 



EXTRACT FROM A DISCOURSE IN PETEREORO, 



NOVEMBER 20, 1864. 



"I need say no more to show how necessary to true religion 
and to the best type of manhood is unwavering fidelity to the 
claims of nature. Were I called on for the most striking and 
melancholy instance of trampling on these claims, I would cite 
the late Democratic party. I say late, for it is dead : and slav- 
ery and the rebellion, instead of being able to raise their ally 
to life again, will soon be in the same grave with it, I do not 
say that there will never again be a Democratic party amongst us. 
There will be. It will not, however, be like the old one. For 
slavery, the soul of the old one, will not be alive to animate the 
new one. Nor will it be the party which was proposed in the 
War Democratic Meeting held in New-York a few days before 
the recent election. For that would be a party, if not too cow- 
ardly, nevertheless, too prudent, to speak of slavery. Most em- 
phatically would that party furnish an instance of the playing of 
Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out. The saying that never 
more can a man who spells ' negro ' with two ' g's ' become 
President, is a very true one. As true, however, is it that no 
party, which, whilst slaveiy lasts, favors or ignores it, will ever 
again be in the ascendant. No, the Democratic party which 
shall succeed the deceased one, will be impartial toward all the 
varieties of the human family, and be based on equal justice to- 
ward all men. The original Democratic party, that of Jefferson's 
day, and, in no small degree, of his making, was worthy of honor. 
The late Democratic party had no title whatever to its prestige 
or traditions. It was a thief. But, unlike most thieves, (for 
they take what is most valuable and leave what is least so,) it 
took the name and left the principles of the original Democratic 
party ; the flag, and left all it symbolized. That with this name 
and flag it was able to juggle so successfully and to accomplish 
so much evil, is, to say the least, very discreditable to the 
popular intelligence. I have praised the original Democratic 
party : but the Democratic party which is to come will be a far 
better one. 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 49 

"We return from this digression, and proceed in showing how* 
frightfully at war with nature was the late Democratic party" 
in other words, how frightfully unnatural it was. Slavery not 
only robs its victim of every right, but with unapproachable 
blasphemy it attempts a change — an entire chang< — in his 
essentia!, God-given being. It drags him down from the glo- 
rious heights of humanity to class him with brutes and things. 
It reduces immortality to merchandise. Such is the hideous, 
the stupendous crime against nature of which the slaveholder is 
guilty. There is only one other on earth that is more hideous, 
more stupendous. This one other is, when a great political 
party indorses and espouses slavery, and makes its perpetuation 
ami indefinite extension its chief and vital policy. Of this 
greater crime against nature the late Democratic party was 
guilty. More than thirty years ago it began its alliance with 
slavery; and ere long that alliance had ripened into indissoluble- 
ness. When the rebellion broke out — when, in other words, 
shivery took up arms — the party, bad as it was, was somewhat, 
shocked. Many, including of course its best men, quit it. The 
party did not — certainly not to a great extent — immediately and 
openly favor the rebellion. But, soon after, it came to see that 
the downfall of the rebellion would of necessity involve the 
downfall of slavery, and therefore its own downfall, its own life 
being bound up in the life of slavery. And then it delayed not 
to take open steps toward the side of the rebellion. At Chicago 
it formally and shamelessly identified itself with it. It adopted 
a rebellion platform — a platform at peace with the South and at 
war with the North. It left no material difference between itself 
and the Southern rebels, save the geographical one. Those were 
the Southern and it was the Northern wing of the rebellion. 

"As proof how clearly the late Democratic party saw itself to be 
living in trie life of slavery, and as proof, too, that its members 
are trained to make its interest their supreme interest, there was 
probably, when that party entered upon the recent election, not 
one man in it who was in favor of abolishing slavery, that greatest 
crime against God and man, 

"Not a few of the Southern presses of the Democratic part} 
held that slavery is the appropriate condition of all manual labor- 
ers. But so deep and revolting a crime against nature is shivery, 
that it was not easy to spread the conviction at the North thai 
slavery is right. Nevertheless, the negroes must be continued in 
slavery. This was vital in the policy of the Democratic party. 
Hence with ceaseless industry did that party inculcate hatred of 
the race on whom slavery had fastened, bur it knew that the 
more men hated this innocent and hapless race the more they 
would be reconciled to its enslavement, and the less they would 
speak of and pity its wrongs. The first and last and never-ceas- 
ing lesson which that party taught Irish immigrants was hatred, 
mui'derous hatred, of the negro. Nothing went so far to inflame 
it as that party's incessant lie that the negro, released from slav- 
4 



50 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

cry, would come North and take away the Irishman's labor. 
This hatred became the ruling passion of those immigrants. Under 
its sway they denied the right of the negro to eat or sit, or even 
fight for 'his country, by the side of a white man. Moreover, 
under its sway seven eighths of them voted with the Democratic 
party. The reason commonly assigned why these immigrants 
increase so slowly in knowledge and rise so slowly in character, 
is that- they are Irish. I deny that this is the true reason. My 
respect for the memory of a grandparent born in Cork denies 
it. The obvious truth in the case denies it. Why these immi- 
grants are so backward in knowledge and character is chiefly be- 
cause they were made into Democrats and drank in the Demo- 
cratic hatred of the negro. Need any one be told that hatred 
is shriveling to the soul which harbors it? Need any one be told 
that, had these immigrants been taught love, instead of hatred, 
they would have expanded into a wisdom and morality widely 
contrasting with their present intellectual and moral darkness ? 

" It is not because these immigrants are Irish that, so soon after 
landing upon our shores, they show themselves to be the deadly 
oppressors of our harmless and helpless colored people. It is 
because they are scarcely landed ere they are, as I said before, 
made into Democrats. Would that it were into real Democrats ! 
But, alas, it is into the Satanic style of Democrats ! The people 
of Ireland are taught to hate oppression by their own suffering 
of it. They hate it when they come to us. But very soon, 
under Democratic appliances, they are made ready to practice it. 

" Chief-Justice Taney was much censured for favoring the senti- 
ment that black men have no rights which white men are bound 
to respect. But he was pushed up to it by the Democratic 
party. This sentiment had long been the sentiment of that party. 
A practice corresponding with it had long been the practice of 
•that party. Within a few weeks the Chief-Justice has left our 
world. There is a world (and may be he has gone to it) where to 
'Condemn a man for his skin is held to be a mistake ; and where 
those few words of dear Robert Burns, " A man's a man for a' 
that," infinitely outweigh all the nonsense and blasphemy which 
pro-slaveiy courts and pro-slavery parties and pro-slavery churches 
have uttered to the contrary. 

" It is held that the Catholic priests help the Democratic party 
•to the Irish vote. I am not prepared to believe it. Like the 
ministers of the Episcopal Church, they stand aloof from politics. 
I would myself that all preachers preached politics — the politics 
of wisdom, justice, and humanity. For to me, it is as plain that 
pure politics are a part of religion as that the theologies arc not. 
Deeply do I rejoice that most of the ministers of most of the 
sects have of late years come to preach politics. God bless them 
for their good service in this wise in the last election ! Great and 
blessed is this change! Only twenty years ago, and they were 
strenuously opposed to bringing politics into the pulpit; and if a 
layman ventured to attempt to supply their delinquency, he lost 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 51 

all favor with them. Our ministers are making religion more 
practical; ami the more they do so, the more will their interest 
in the theologies decline. Compared with bis interesl in practical 
righteousness — in other phrase, with his interest in religion — how 
little does Henry Ward Beecher care for the theologies! What 
a contrast between the dry, dogmatic, useless sermons of the 
last century and the juicy and lit-1'or-use sermons of the present 
day! 

"That a party, which has its life in slavery, should furnish tens 
of thousands of men to those secret, oath-bound, bloody Associa- 
tions that are cooperating with Southern rebels; and that, under 
its educating influences, there should -come forth men base and 
villainous enough to attempt the ruin of their country by forgeries 
upon soldiers and frauds upon the ballot-box, is but what might 
have been expected. So, too, it was but a matter of course that 
such a party should be exceedingly attractive to the vicious and 
ignorant. Of the drunkards and of the men who can not read 
and write, who voted at the late election, probably seven eighths 
voted Democratic tickets. Those localities in our great cities 
which are sinks of vice have generally given their almost entire 
vote to the Democratic party. Cunning and corruption com- 
bined with ignorance, and ceaselessly playing upon it — these were 
so largely the elements in the Democratic party, that one might 
almost say they made up the party. And these were the ele- 
ments that made it both numerous and strong. But happily the 
strength, which comes of such sources, is short-lived, whilst that 
which is founded in virtue and intelligence, is permanent. 

" Am I asked whether there were no good men in the Democratic 
party ? I answer that there were tens of thousands. Many of 
them were blind to its bad character. Many of them continued 
in it simply from the force of habit. They had always been in 
the Democratic party ; and though the change which had taken 
place in it was as great as from day to night, they must neverthe- 
less continue in it. That the ship was rotten and sinking, did not 
arrest their attention. That it carried the same name and flag, 
as that which had gone triumphantly through so many tempests, 
was enough to assure them of safety and keep them from desert- 
ing it. 

"And how do I explain the fact that thousands of intelligent, 
high-minded, cultivated gentlemen, who, though well knowing 
what the Democratic party was, nevertheless consented to belong 
to it ? I answer that it was because they knew what it was, 
that they belonged to it. They had so far smothered their nature 
with their conventionalisms as to become unnatural enough to 
feel at home in so unnatural a party. They had drawn a broad 
line of demarkation between themselves and the masses — especial- 
ly between themselves and the poor, most of all, the negroes, who 
are the poorest of the poor. In a word, they were aristocrats, 
and therefore could not fail of a strong affinity for the most 
aristocratic party in the world. They had that contempt of the 



52 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

poor which is the leading element in aristocrac} r ; and so strong 
was it in that party, as to make increasingly popular in it the 
doctrine that the rich should own the poor and capital own labor. 
Not strange was it, then, that the aristocrats of America should 
attach themselves to that party, nor strange was it that the aristo- 
crats of Europe should sympathize with-it. Nor was it strange 
that both should wish success to the rebellion, since they saw it 
so clear that the rebellion and negro slavery and the Democratic 
party must all succeed together or fail together ; and since, too, 
they saw it so clear that aristocracy would gain much by the suc- 
cess or lose much by the failui'e. 

"I need say no more to justify my citing the deceased Demo- 
cratic party as a preeminent instance of outrages on the princi- 
ples and rights of human nature, and therefore as a striking speci- 
men of the exceedingly and monstrously unnatural. Let this 
party, whose malignant and untiring industry on the side of the 
rebellion threatened ruin to our country ; let this party, so furi- 
ously at war with the claims of nature, and therefore with the 
claims of religion ; let its career and its close effectually admon- 
ish us to be true to humanity, and to stand by its rights in the 
persons of men of whatever clime, complexion, or condition. So 
shall we stand by God also ; and so will He in turn stand by us. 
Nature or religion (which in this connection is a word of the 
same import) succeeded at the late election. The suppression of 
the rebellion and the freedom of all the slaves, highly probable 
before, are made certain by this success. But whether our nation 
shall be saved will turn upon the question, whether we shall be so 
true to the claims of nature — to the claims of religion — as to 
enthrone justice in our governments, our churches, our hearts — a 
justice so impartial as to accord equal rights to all, born wherever 
they may have been or with whatever complexion. A nation can 
be saved only by righteousness. It is only in a low sense that as 
yet any of the nations have been saved. When all of them shall 
recognize and protect all the natural rights of all men, then all 
of them will be saved. Then there will no longer be war, not 
slavery, nor land-monopoly, nor licensed dram-shop, nor denial 
to woman of civil and political equality with man. Then, indeed, 
will have come the " Millennium ;" not because it was foretold, 
but because it was earned. It will come not as the beginning, 
but as the fruit of righteousness ; not to last for only a thousand 
years, but so long as justice shall reign amongst men, and so long 
as the religion of nature and reason and Jesus — the religion of 
doing as we would be done by — shall be their religion." 



LETTER TO SENATOR SUMNER. 



[Justice to the Constitution, and to the Honest Masses who Voted for it! 



Peterboro, December 5, 1SC4. 
IIox. CnAELES StnrxEn : 

My Dear Sir: I do not forget that to be singular is to be 
regarded as botli eccentric and egotistical ; and that to be re- 
garded as either, is much in the way of one's usefulness. Never- 
theless, I must confess that at one point in our national affairs I 
have never been able to fall in with the friends of freedom. ! 
refer to their eagerness during the present year to have the Con- 
stitution amended. Allow me to call your attention to some of 
the reasons why I have no sympathy with this eagerness. If 
there is no force in them, the mention of them can do no harm. 
If there is, it may do good. 

First. The excitement and distraction attendant on war render 
it an unfavorable time for the responsible and solemn work of 
altering the organic law of the land. For no work can the calm- 
ness, composure, and leisure which peace brings, he more neces- 
sary. 

Second. During all this entirely unprovoked, this wantonly and 
surpassingly wicked rebellion, the duty ever nearest to us, nay, 
otir one duty, has been to suppress it. We must not be diverted 
from it. We must be absorbed in it. 

Of course, I admit the rightfulness, nay, the absolute obligation, 
of doing whatever the most faithful discharge of this duty calls 
for. If it calls for the total abolition of slavery, and if the power 
with which he is invested as head of the army does not authorize 
the President to respond, nevertheless Congress is abundantly 
authorized to make the response. The constitutional right of 
Congress to declare war is, of course, attended by the constitu- 
tional right to carry on war, and to carry it on by means of its 
own selection and by enacting laws, which itself shall judge to be 
'•necessary and proper." To deny to Congress unlimited dis 
oretion in carrying on war, unlimited discretion over both men 
and property — and this too, if need lie, to the extent of abolish- 
ing both slavery and apprenticeship, or even of shutting up both 
schools and churches — is virtually to admit that we arc not a 
nation. Absolute power in conducting war is vital to nationality. 



54 GERPJT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

If our spirit of democracy, or, in other words, our jealousy and 
impatience of power, can not abide this absoluteness, then we had 
better exchange it for a spirit that can ; or frankly advertise the 
nations, that we shall hold ourselves an easy prey to whichever 
of them shall choose to make Avar upon us. 

I do not say that, on the return of peace, slavery and 
apprenticeship could not be reestablished, and the schools and 
churches reSp'enecl. I speak of the power of Congress during 
war. 

The only justification for changing the Constitution in a time 
so unpropitious as that of war, is that it is needful to success in 
the war. But it never can be needful so long as the power of 
Congress in carrying on war remains absolute. If, for instance, it 
is slavery that stands in the way of such success, then there can 
be congressional statutes, which will operate more speedily, and, 
for the present, more effectively to remove it than can any at- 
tempted constitutional changes. Is it said that the South would 
be more disheartened by a constitutional or permanent abolition 
of slavery than by a congressional or temporary abolition of it ? 
I answer that the South is in such straits as leave her no concern 
but to get out of them ; that her present success is her present 
and so absorbing concern, as to make her indifferent to Avhat lies 
beyond the rebellion. 

Third. A seriously disturbing question might hereafter arise as 
to the constitutionality of the amendment, provided it was not 
assented to by three fourths of all the States, loyal and disloyal, 
and this too, without counting in the three fourths "West-Virginia 
or any of the reconstructed seceded States. 

Fourth. But the chief reason why I am clear of this impatience 
for the proposed constitutional Amendment is my strong appre- 
hension that it will not be couched in suitable words. 

An Amendment, implying that without it the Constitution 
svould authorize or even tolerate slavery, would do great injustice 
to those "who adopted the Constitution. It would be wickedly 
blotting their memory. So much stress has been laid on the 
history of the Constitution, it may well be said that there are two 
constitutions, the one the historical and the other the literal. 
The former is that which has ruled the country. Terrible, all the 
way, has been its rule. The cry of many millions to an avenging 
God has come of it. The soaking of our land with blood has also 
come of it. That the history of the Constitution has so cursed us 
is because it is so almost universally held to be a pro-slavery 
history. In other words, that this historical Constitution has so 
cursed us is because of the ever-urged and almost universally 
accepted claim that the literal Constitution was made in the 
interest of slavery. Alas for the people, to whom the angel of 
the Apocalypse cried, " wo, wo, avo !" if they suffered more than 
America has suffered from this historical Constitution ! That 
there is much for slavery in the history of the Constitution, I 
admit. But that there is also much in it against slavery, I affirm. 



GEREIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. .">•"> 

Pro-slavery interests, however, hare succeeded in keeping the 
latter out* of sight. The rejection in the Convention, which 
framed the Constitution, of the motion to require " fugitive 
slaves" to be delivered up, and the unanimous adoption, the next 
day, of the motion to deliver up, not "fugitive slaves," but 
persons from whom labor or service is due, is a historical fact 
against slavery. So, too, is Mr. Madison's unopposed declaration 
in the Convention that it would be "wrong to admit in the 
Constitution the idea that there could be property in man." And 
so also is that Convention's unanimous substitution of the word 
" service," for " servitude " for the avowed reason, that servitude 
expresses the condition of slaves and service thai of freemen. 
Nothing, however, of all this did I need to say. What this thing 
is, which is called the history of the Constitution — what is this 
historical Constitution, as I have termed that history — is really of 
no moment. What it is in the light of the records of the Con- 
vention referred to, or of the records of the " Virginia Conven- 
tion " or any other Convention ; or what it is on the pages of the. 
Federalist, or .of any other book, or of any newspaper, should not 
be made the least account of. The aggregate of all those, whose 
words contributed to make up this historical Constitution, is but 
a comparative handful. The one question is — what is the literal 
Constitution? For it is that, and that only, which the people 
adopted, and which is therefore the Constitution. They did not 
adopt the discussions of the Convention which framed it. These 
were secret. They did not adopt what the newspapers said of the 
Constitution. Newspapers in that day were emphatically "few 
and far between." But even had they been familiar with the 
newspapers and with the discussions, their one duty would never- 
theless have been to pass upon the simple letter of the Constitu- 
tion. As Judge Story so well says : " Nothing but the text itself 
was adopted by the people." And 1 add that what, the people 
intended by the Constitution is to be gathered solely from its 
text; and that what the people intended by it and not what its 
framers or the commentators upon it intended, is the Constitution. 
So we will take up the text of the Constitution to learn what and 
what alone is the Constitution. Its very Preamble tells us that. it. 
is made to "secure the blessings of liberty." Thus, even in the 
porch of her temple doth Liberty deign to meet us. Strange, 
indeed, would it be were she to desert us in its apartments ! She 
does not. In our progress through the Constitution we find it 
pledging the power of the whole nation to maintain in every 
State "a republican form of government." Pro-slavery men tell 
us that this was no more than a republican governmenl of the 
aristocratic ({reek and Roman type; and that, therefore, men can 
consistently lie bought and sold Under it. But when the lathers 
gave us the Constitution, the. political heavens were all ablaze 
with a new light — the light of the truth "that all men are created 
equal," and that the great end of government is to maintain that 
equality. Ere we get through the Constitution — ere Liberty has 



56 GEKR1T SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

led ue all tlic way through her temple — Ave meet with the slavery- 
forbidding declaration that: "No person shall be deprived of life, 
liberty, or property without due process of law." 

I do not overlook the fact that the literal Constitution also is 
claimed to be on the side of slavery. The last clause which I 
quoted from it is claimed to be at least negatively so — for it is 
claimed to apply to the general Government only. But it is not 
the literal Constitution which says the application is to be 
restricted to the general Government. It is only this historical 
Constitution which says it. And, by the way, the history of the 
Constitution says the opposite also. The failure of Mr. Partridge's 
motion shows that it was not meant to have all the amendments 
apply to the general Government only ; and that it was meant 
that the State governments should be restrained by some of them. 
The apportionment clause is held to recognize slavery. But it 
does not. Who then are the " three fifths of all other persons " it 
speaks of? They are aliens. Why do I say so ? Because, using 
the word " free " in this clause in the sense authorized for ages 
by English law and usage, these three fifths are persons other 
than native and naturalized citizens — that is, aliens. (The argu- 
ment of Lysander Spooner at this point in his admirable volume 
on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery is especially valuable.) 
Moreover, I say that they are aliens — because in this wise the 
clause is relieved of guilt. So, too, the migration and importation 
clause is held to recognize slavery. But it does not. Nothing is 
in the way of applying it to passengers and travelers. Whereas 
to apply it to slaves is to make it guilty of tolerating the slave- 
trade. And the clause respecting fugitives, who are " held to 
service or labor," is claimed to refer to slaves. But it should be 
applied to apprentices and hired laborers because, in its terms, it 
is entirely applicable to them. To apply it to slaves is to violate 
the accepted meaning of words. It is to go out of the way to 
make the Constitution infamous. 

Let me here say, that, strictly speaking, I was wrong in taking 
the ground I did for vindicating my interpretation of the clauses 
just referred to. That ground was to save them from a guilty 
interpretation. But in legal contemplation they are incapable of 
a guilty interpretation. For, if there be in them the injustice 
generally attributed to them, nevertheless, as it is not clearly 
expressed, it is, legally speaking, unexpressed and unexisting. 
And how entirely reasonable is this legal view ! For, it is not 
probable — to say the least, it is not certain, (and unless certain it 
is of no account,) that the people would have adopted the Consti- 
tution, had it said in plain terms that men should be rewarded 
for being slaveholders by a large addition to their political power 
and to their representation in the national councils ; and that the 
horrid African slave-trade should continue for at least twenty 
years; and that our country should be sunk into a hunting-ground 
for human prey. Now it may be, as it is claimed it was, that it 
was attempted to get all this into the Constitution. But if the 



GER1UT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 57 

phraseologies were such that an honest, unsuspecting people 
would not see the guilty intention concealed in them, then whal 
was intended became no pari of the Constitution. All I have 
here said, and though, too, ii had been far more strongly said, is 
justified by the vide which the Supreme Court of the United 

Slates laid down in the case against Fisher and others, 2dCranch, 
390: " Where rights are infringed, where fundamental principles 

are overthrown, where the general system of the laws is departed 
from, the legislative intention must be expressed with irresistibli 
clearness to induce a court of justice to suppose a design to effect 
such objects." I add, (what is obvious in the lighl of what has 
just been said,) that if the innocent interpretation, which I have 
given to the clauses in question, is not tenable, nevertheless in no 
event are the clauses susceptible of guilty interpretations. 

Certain is it, then, that they who adopted the literal Constitu- 
tion, did not\adopt a pro-slavery one. Its words show they did 
not: and the fact that they had just then emerged from a bloody 
contest for human rights argues strongly that they would not. 
Whence then came our pro-slavery Constitution — our only re- 
cognized or actual Constitution during the last seventy years? It 
came from the cunning and wicked substitution by pro-slavery 
politicians of a pro-slavery historical Constitution for the anti- 
slavery literal one. For us, then, to agree upon an anti-slavery 
amendment of such terms, as would imply its necessity from the 
intrinsic character of the literal Constitution rather than from the 
pro-slavery character which we and our predecessors have foisted 
upon it ; for us thus to confound the anti-slavery literal Constitu- 
tion with the pro-slavery historical one, which, in no small part 
through our own agency, has overridden it; for us to confound 
the innocence of those who adopted the literal Constitution with 
our guilt in .supplanting it with a pro-slavery one — would be a 
piece of wickedness and meanness from which may God save us! 
May we be manly enough to consent to bear the burden of our 
own shame, instead of rolling ii back upon our innocent ancestors! 

Let me not be understood as finding fault with those brave 
sentinels of freedom, those faithful defenders of human rights — 
who, for twenty years, have been denouncing tin- Constitution. 
For it was only the pro-slavery historical Constitution, which 
they denounced. It was that, and that only, which they called a 
"covenant with death and agreement with hell ; " and richly did 
it deserve to be so called. It was only that one, which Mr. 
Garrison publicly burned ; and I admit that the lire of hell itself 
is not too hot for it to be cast into. True, it is that, on the 
occasion I refer to, he burnt the literal Constitution. Nevertheless 
in burning if he burnt not that, but only the pro-slavery interpre- 
tations of it — only its guilty misrepresentations. It was only 
these that he delivered " unto Satan." The Constitution was 
" saved." 

I referred to our duty to the memory of the honest masses, 
whose votes gave us the Constitution. Nor should we forget our 



•*>8 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

duty to those who will come after us. If Ave are so debauched 
by slavery as not to blush over our admission that the organic 
law of our nation is on the side of slavery, nevertheless, that our 
descendants will hang their heads over it, should restrain us from 
making it. If we, so far as our own sensibilities are concerned, 
can consent to have it go over the earth and down the ages that 
our fathers, in laying the foundations of our national existence, 
were moved by a spirit as wicked as that of the Thugs ; and that 
" in order to form a more perfect union," they resolved to cement 
it with the blood of the slave ; nevertheless let us remember that 
to our successors such a tradition will be a heritage of shame and 
sorrow. For slavery, having then passed away, they will not be 
corrupted by it, nor blinded to its character. It will in their eyes 
be the blackest of all crimes — blacker than even murder : and 
they will rather that the Constitution had been charged with 
sanctioning any other. 

Dropping the figure of a historical Constitution, I am free to 
admit that the literal Constitution has been so long and so 
generally misrepresented and perverted, especially by pro-slavery 
courts and pro-slavery legislatures, that an amendment is desir- 
able. As to whether it shall be made during the war or after the 
war, I would not be strenuous, nor add to what I have said on 
that point. Only let the amendment be in words that violate 
neither truth nor a sacred regard for the memory of the plain and 
honest men whose votes gave us the Constitution, and I will be 
content. It would be no more than is due to their memory ; and 
no more than would be eagerly rendered to outraged justice and 
freedom, had it been white instead of black men who are the victims 
of the misinterpretation of the Constitution in regard to slavery — 
should the amendment admit in plain terms that it is a misinter- 
pretation. But if this admission can not be obtained, is it too much 
to ask that the Amendment be a declaration, that the Constitution 
shall never be so interpreted as to legalize or permit the legaliza- 
tion of slavery, but shall ever be so interpreted as to prohibit slav- 
ery in every part of the nation ? The usual words regarding in- 
voluntary servitude could be added. What an argument it is in 
favor of the anti-slavery character of the Constitution, that not so 
much as one line, no, nor one word of it, need be changed in order 
to bring it into perfect harmony with the most radical and sweep- 
ing anti-slavery Amendment ! And how strongly is this character 
argued from the fact that were constitutional phrases, as innocent 
and inapplicable as these which are relied on to rob the noblest black 
man of his liberty, to be made the ground for robbing the meanest 
white man of his, or even the meanest white man oi" his meanest 
dog, such use of them would be instantly and indignantly scouted 
by all ! And how strongly is it also argued from the fact, that a 
stranger to America and to her practice of making Church and 
State and all things minister to slavery, could see absolutely 
nothing, could suspect absolutely nothing in the Constitution, 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 59 

which might be seized on to turn that also to the foul and 
diabolical sen ice ! 

But why should we slop with an anti-slavery amendment? 
Immeasurably more needed is an amendment to tlie effect that 
race or origin shall not work a forfeiture of any civil or political 
rights. Even an anti-slavery amendment may nol be permanent. 
A race, whilst deprived of rights, winch other races enjoy, can 
have no reasonable assurance that it will he protected against 
even slavery, lint make it equal with them in rights, and it will 
he able to protect itself. It is said that to pour out upon the 
ballot-boxes the multitudinous and illiterate blacks of the slave 
States would he ahsurd. I do myself think so. I do myself 
think that in a State where a large share of the people can not 
read and write, reading and writing should be made conditions 
of voting. 

I know not that the nation is prepared for such an amendment 
as I here suggest : and therefore I know not that it is prepared to 
escape destruction. God, in his awful controversy with us, 
demands entire justice for the race we have trampled on : and he 
will not be appeased by partial justice. Pharaoh, under the 
pressure of God's judgments, made concessions from time to time 
to the Israelites. Nevertheless he perished ; and left a memory, 
which still lives to warn both nations and individuals not to trust 
in a temporizing policy and in partial responses to justice. 

And why, when Congress is submitting amendments, should it 
not submit one in favor of purging the Constitution of the 
aristocratic and people-distrusting Electoral Colleges, and of 
supplying their place with the right of the people to cast direct 
votes for President ami Vice-President? And why not one 
against polygamy? And how beautifully seasonable it would be, 
if, now when we are suffering because we denied (hnVs authority 
in national concerns, and blasphemously held slave-law to be 
paramount to the "higher law," we should penitently and ador- 
ingly insert between " do " and " ordain " in the Preamble of the 
Constitution : " whilst recognizing the supreme authority of God 
over nations as well as individuals ! " 

But it is objected that the anti-slavery amendment Avould he an 
encroachment on "State sovereignty," and the like objection 
would doubtless be made to these other amendments. Neverthe- 
less, this proud "State sovereignty" can not help itself. Its 
exposure to be reduced to a very humble minimum of power will 
last as long as the right to amend the Constitution shall last. 

By the way, this right of amendment is the most valuable of 
all our constitutional rights. Without it, a State might set up and 
keep up systems that would pom- their corrupting and destroying 
influences over the whole nation. With it, the intellectually and 
morally advanced States, if they number three fourths of all, are 
able to drag up to their own higher plane of civilization the other 
and lagging fourth. In the progress of knowledge and truth and 
justice three fourths of the States may ere long be ashamed of a 



60 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

nation in which woman is treated as an inferior, and political 
power withheld from her : and so, too, they may ere long be 
ashamed of a nation in which Government, whose sole legitimate 
province is to protect person and property, does more than all 
else to endanger person and property by permitting and author- 
izing the alcoholic manufacture of maniacs : and ere long they 
may also be ashamed of a nation, which, setting no limits to 
individual acquisition of land, allows millions to be landless, 
^yhose right to the soil is as natural, perfect, and sacred as the 
right to light or air. I say ere long — for in our present school of 
suffering we shall be like to grow fast both in the knowledge and 
acknowledgment of human rights. Nothing, so much as affliction, 
is promotive of wisdom and goodness. "The Captain of salva- 
tion was made perfect through suffering." But whether it be 
sooner or later that as many as three fourths of the States shall 
desire the reformation of the nation in these respects, happy, 
thrice happy, will it be that, by means of their power to amend 
the Constitution, this desire can be gratified. I do not forget 
that this power can be wielded for a retrograde as well as for a 
forward movement. Bnt our nation is suffering so much for her 
sins, and especially for her sin of placing the Constitution on the 
side of wickedness; and she is, moreover, learning so much from 
her sufferings, that I have little fear she will ever again be dis- 
posed to place it on that side. She placed it there by misinter- 
preting it on the question of slavery ; and sorely has she suffered 
from doing so. She will not consent to amendments of the Con- 
stitution, which will again make it the servant of wickedness. 



THE CONSTITUTION, RECONSTRUCTION, AND] THE PROCLAMATION. 

SPEECH AT COOPEE [NSTITUTE, NEW-YOBE. 
January 4, 18G5. 



It is proposed to have the Constitution so amended thai hence- 
forth slavery shall not be law in any part of the land. But has 
it ever been ? If so, what made it law ? By not being forbidden 

in the Constitution, is one answer to the question. Hut it is for- 
bidden in it — directly as well as indirectly, by its letter as well as 
by its spirit, by itself as well as by its preamble. 

It is held that the States made the Constitution. If they did, 
they nevertheless made it, as the preamble shows, in the name of 
the people. Moreover, as they made it in the name nut of this 
nor that sort of people ; and made it " to secure the blessings 
of liberty" not to this nor that sort of people, so it is to be inter- 
preted as having been made in the name of the whole people and 
for the whole people, and as forbidding the enslavement of any 
portion or any variety of the people. That this doctrine that the 
Slates made the Constitution has obtained so long and so widely, 
is not strange. There are thousands of doctrines, and this is one 
of them, which are upheld not by their soundness, for they are ut- 
terly unsound, but by the interest which men have to uphold 
them. There, is but one fact of any moment which favors this 
doctrine that the States made the Constitution : and even this but 
secerns to favor it. The fact I refer to is, that the people voted 
by States upon the Constitution. They did so, in the iirsi place. 
for the salve of convenience. But in the second place, from neces- 
sity — the people of each State having to say for themselves and 
by themselves whether they would consent to such a modifying 
and curtailing of the rights and powers of their Slate as the 
erection of the proposed Government called for. Clearly, the 
people of Virginia, and the people of New-York could not act 
either for each other or together in this matter. 

But t<> return to my declaration that slavery is forbidden in the 
Constitution. I will mention a ie\v of the instances in which ii i - 
forbidden. The right of the people, without any exception, to 
keep and bear arms, and the right of Congress to make contracts 
with whom it will without exception, to serve in the army and 



62 GEBRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

navy, are rights which imply that all the people are free. The re- 
quirement of " a republican form of government " in every State 
is a virtual prohibition of slavery. For we must bear in mind 
that our fathers did not mean by " republican form of govern- 
ment" oue of the Greek or Roman aristocratic type. They had 
just said in the Declaration of Independence "that all men are 
created equal." Their choice of a government, therefore, would 
be one to defend this equality — would be one whose subjects 
would be equal before the law. But the strongest and most 
direct prohibition of slavery in the Constitution is its declaration 
that, " No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property 
without due process of law " — that is, without a trial and convic- 
tion according to the course of the common law. 

It is, however, said that, inasmuch as there are clauses in the Con- 
stitution which permit slavery, those in it which appear to forbid it 
are not to be construed as forbidding it. But which are those that 
permit it ? The answer is, the apportionment clause, and the mi- 
gration and importation clause, and the fugitive-servant clause. 
Certainly, not on their face do they permit it. You must go out- 
side of the text of the Constitution for help to give Jhem this con- 
struction ; and that you have no right to do. To give an innocent 
construction to the uncertain words of a law you may go outside 
of the law. But where a guilty construction is your aim, you are 
shut up to the text: and the text fails you, unless it is with "irre- 
sistible clearness " on the side of the guilty construction. Says 
the Supreme Court of the United States, 2 Cranch, 390 : "Where 
rights are infringed, where fundamental principles are over- 
thrown, where the general system of the laws is departed from, 
the legislative intention must be expressed with irresistible clear- 
ness to induce a court of justice to suppose a design to effect such 
objects." 

I may be asked, to whom, then, do these clauses refer, if they 
do not refer to slaves? I am not bound to answer. I will, how- 
ever, say that, without the least violence to its language, the ap- 
portionment clause might be applied to aliens, aliens being desti- 
tute of those rights and privileges the possessors of which the 
English law had for so many ages called " free." And I would 
say that the language of the importation and migration clause 
permits its application to travelers and passengers. And, also, 
that the fugitive-servant clause does, under its simplest construc- 
tion, apply to apprentices and hired laborers. But whether these 
clauses are or are not capable of these applications, it is enough 
for our present purpose that the canon of legal interpretation 
forbids their application to slaves. 

It is said that the framers of the Constitution intended to put 
it on the side of slavery. Probably some of them did. For there 
is historical evidence, as well that some of them were pro-slavery 
as that others were anti-slavery. But may we not argue that the 
pro-slavery spirit was repented of when we see that, four days 
before they closed their Convention, the framers unanimously 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 63 

struck out "servitude" from the Constitution and supplied its 
place with "service," for the avowed reason that "servitude" 
expresses the condition of slaves, and "service" thai of freemen? 
What, however, the framers intended the Constitution to be, is 
of little more consequence than wbal the scrivener who writes it 
intends by the deed of the land. What the grantor and grantee 
intend, is the question in the One case ; and what the adopters of the 
Constitution intended, is the question in the other. What the 
adopters intended, is to be gathered solely from its text. For it was 
not. the discussions nor intentions of the Trainers, nor the histories 
of the making and objects of the Constitution which were adopted. 
It was the text only: and, as we have seen, the text admits of no 
guilty construction, because it expresses no guilty intention. I 
add that it' the iVamers intended to put the Constitution on the 
side of slavery, they should, in terms of "irresistible clearness," 
have apprised the people of the guilty intention. Did they wish 
the people to encourage and reward slaveholding by a special and 
large representation in our national councils V Did they wish 
them to sanction the abominations of the slave-trade? Did they 
wish them to convert the whole nation into a hunting-ground for 
human prey? — then they should have asked for all this in plain 
terms and in words of unmistakable meaning. Had they, how- 
ever, done so, the people would have scouted the insolence. But 
in no other terms and words could they ask the people to make 
themselves guilty of such stupendous wickedness — the laws of 
legal interpretation making it impossible to ask it in other terms 
and words. 

How immeasurably absurd it is to call the Constitution pro- 
slavery is seen in the fact, that it needs not the slightest alteration 
in line or letter to be entirely harmonious with the most thorough 
anti-slavery amendment ; and in the further fact, that a stranger 
to the history of America would not so much as suspect that there 
is slavery in her Constitution ; and in the still further fact, that 
to apply to the enslavement of a white man clauses which no 
more point and express themselves to this end than do the clauses 
in question to the end of enslaving the black man, would be held 
by all to be ridiculous, insulting, and infamous to the last degree. 
But although slavery is repeatedly forbidden in the Constitu- 
tion, and nowhere in it permitted, nevertheless I would not only not 
oppose but 1 would favor such an amendment of it as would in 
plain and literal terms forbid slavery. A sufficient reason for 
such an amendment is, that the Constitution has been so contin- 
uously and thoroughly perverted to the upholding of slavery. 
War, however, with all its excitements and distractions, is not the 
best time for altering the organic law of a nation. That solemn 
work needs a.ll the leisure, calmness, and composure which peace 
brings. Then, too, we need to he absorbed in the one purpose — 
and one work of succeeding in the war. Is it said that slavery is 
in the way of such success ? I answer that we need not amend 
the Constitution in order to put it out of the way. That can be 



64 GEREIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

done quicker than by amending the Constitution. Nevertheless, 
I would waive all question in regard to the time for amending the 
Constitution, and be concerned only about the terms of the amend- 
ment. To have it in such terms as would imply that without it 
the Constitution is for slavery, would be to wrong and blot the mem- 
ory of the honest, unsuspecting masses who adopted the Constitu- 
tion ; to disgrace our nation in the eyes of other nations ; and to 
make our posterity ashamed of both ancestry and nation. If the 
amendment shall not be such, as to say in plain terms that the 
Constitution is against slavery, it should at least be such as to im- 
ply it. If the amendment shall not go so far as to say that the 
interpretation of the Constitution for slavery is a misinterpreta- 
tion, nevertheless it should at least imply that it is ; and this it 
would imply if it should declare that the Constitution shall never 
be so interpreted as to legalize or permit the legalization of slav- 
ery, but shall ever be so interpreted as to forbid both. 

I said that slaveiy can be put out of the way quicker than by 
amending the Constitution. The constitutional right of Congress 
to declare war carries with it the constitutional right to conduct 
war. Moreover, the Constitution expressly empowers Congress 
"to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper" to this 
end. Congress alone is to decide upon the necessity and propri- 
ety. If in its judgment the successful prosecution of the war 
calls for the abolition of slavery, then it is to abolish it ; if for 
the abolition of apprenticship, then it is to abolish apprenticeship 
also. I go further, and say that, if, in time of war, the preaching 
and teaching in all the churches and school-houses become dis- 
loyal, it may shut up all the churches and school-houses. A dem- 
ocratic people are wont to be jealous of absolute power ; and this 
may account for the injurious hesitation of Congress during this 
Avar to assert such power, notwithstanding it is, in respect to war, 
so clearly clothed with it. For a nation to disclaim absolute 
power for carrying on war is to acknowledge her incompetence 
to carry on Avar, and to apprise her sister nations that whichever 
of them is looking for an easy prey can look toward her. 

I said that Congress has the constitutional right to conduct 
war. But, as I shall say more fully hereafter, such a Avar as that 
avc are uoav involved in is to be conducted, not according to tin 
Constitution, but according to the law of Avar. 

To return to my subject — Ave are under a strong temptation to 
hold that the Constitution is for slavery. For if it is, then the 
fathers, avIio gave it to us, must, of course, share very largely in 
the guilt of ten to tAventy millions being born in slavery, and in 
the guilt of this rebellion, which has come of slavery, and which 
is soaking our land with our best blood. But if it is not in itself 
on the side of slavery, then they, including ourselves, Avho have put 
it there, are the party responsible for these seventy-six years of slav- 
ery, for all its wickedness and all its avocs. We have seen, how- 
ever, that the Constitution is not for slavery. And now will Ave. 
in order to lighten the shame and reduce the criminality of our 



GERR1T SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 65 

pro-slavery practice under it, declare that the Constitution is for 
slavery ? * This is the question. Let us answer it in a way honor- 
able to the fathers, and honorable, also, to our penitent selves, by 
so framing the amendment that it shall take the blame from them 
and put it on their successors. I do not like to say that this 
would be magnanimity. It would be but simple justice. 

Let me here say, that there is another amendment to the Con- 
stitution, which is more needed than one against slavery. It is 
one which shall save men from losing civil or political rights be- 
cause of their race or origin. Such an amendment would not 
only banish slavery, but it would afford an effectual protection 
against its return. Accord to men the full measure of their civil 
and political rights, and they can defend themselves against slav- 
ery. Their freedom will then stand not in the uncertain will and 
shitting policy of others ; but where alone it should stand, in their 
own strength. This nation wants peace with man. But more 
does it need peace with God. And yet how can it ever have 
peace with God so long as it continues to quarrel with Ilim for 
having divided the human family into races, and to punish Ilim 
for the division by denying to some of these races the rights of 
manhood ! 

By the way, this power to amend the Constitution is its most 
important power. By means of it we can put an end to slavery in 
one State and to polygamy in another, and to other abominations in 
other States. In a word, Ave can, by means of it, make all the 
States alike in respect to their chief systems and policies, and, 
therefore, all the people homogeneous and so far happy. 

I will, in this connection, say something on the Reconstruction 
of the Rebel States. Throughout the Avar I have regarded any Re- 
construction of them before the war shall be ended as premature. 
In other Avords, I have held that the provisional governments, Avhich 
Ave set up in the Avake of our conquering armies, should not be 
supplanted Avith permanent ones until the rebellion is subdued. 
I have held this, because, in the first place, Ave should be too 
much occupied with the Avar to be building permanent govern- 
ments ; and because, in the second place, of my fear — a fear just- 
ified by the present — that Reconstruction, if it should precede the 
complete crushing of the rebellion, would have in it as fatally un- 
sound materials as had the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar. But 
as the policy of a present Reconstruction has prevailed, all Ave can 
do is to contribute to give the right shape to the Reconstruction. 

And here let me say, that the same state of mind which has led 
me to oppose Reconstruction, has led me to oppose all negotia- 
tions for peace. Fatally derogatory is it to our national dignity, 
utterly at Avar is it with every just consideration, to treat with 
armed rebels, and especially such rebels. They took up arms 
without cause. Therefore, "they must lay them down Avithout 
conditions. 

The plan of Reconstruction before Congress has many excellent 
features. Particularly welcome are its provisions against alloAving 
5 



66 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION". 

disloyalists of the higher civil and military ranks to vote for 
members of the legislature or for governor, and against allow- 
ing slavery to exist, and against allowing the Reconstructed 
States to be charged with any part of the rebel debt. But 
deeply do I regret that a provision, more important than any 
or all of these, should have been omitted. I mean a provision 
against allowing race or origin to work a forfeiture of civil or 
political rights. This omission may prove as fatal to the stand- 
ing of the Reconstruction as did the clay in its feet to the 
standing of Nebuchadnezzar's image. 

But it is said that suffrage is a matter for State regulation. I 
admit it, as a general proposition. I admit that, but for the war, 
no one would have thought of taking the regulation of it out of 
the hands of the State. But the war has made national action at 
this point not only proper, but imperative. The question now is, 
not what would have been due to the rebel States had they not re- 
belled, but what restrictions is it necessary to put upon them, now 
that they have rebelled ? The question now is, not what would 
have been due to them had they remained our friends, but what 
securities shall we provide, now that they have become our foes? 
In a word, the question now is, what concessions the conqueror 
can wisely and safely make to the conquered ? I say the con- 
queror, for Reconstruction assumes that we are sure and soon to 
be the conqueror. 

Then, again, this plan of Reconstruction provides that certain 
persons shall not be allowed to vote. And is not this as great 
and as humiliating a restriction upon State powers, as would be a 
provision that certain persons shall be allowed to vote ? 

All through this war the delusion has obtained extensively, that 
the States which flung away the Constitution have still their 
former rights under it. But they lost them all when they re- 
belled. 

The word " white" being in the plan, the blacks will, of course, 
be shut out from all part in making the organic law of a Recon- 
structed State. But even were this word not in, nevertheless, as 
the plan does not require suffrage for the blacks, there is not the 
least probability that they would get it. Numerous, and conclu- 
sive as numerous, are the reasons why the plan should require it. 

1st. Though before the war we had not the right to demand 
suffrage for them, we have it now. We have paid for the right 
in much treasure and blood. 

2d. We owe them suffrage because it is vital to them to have 
it ; because, without it, they will be exposed to every wrong and 
every oppression : and we owe it to them because they are our 
saviours. But for their sympathy with our cause, our nation 
would have perished. 

3d. We owe them suffrage for the sake of the South. It is 
her contempt of human rights that has barbarized her — that 
has demonized her. For demons must they have become, who 
can treat prisoners of war as they treat them. She must be 



GERRIT SMITH ON TIIE REBELLION. 67 

recovered from her barbarism and demonism, and contempt of 
man ; and this cannot be done so long as the ballot is withheld 
from her blacks. 

4th. We must secure suffrage to them, in order to save the 
loyal whites of the South. Black voters can be the only effectual 
breakwater against the fury of disloyal Southrons toward loyal 
Southrons. 

5th. For the nation's sake, we must insist on suffrage for the 
blacks. To leave the political power of the South exclusively in 
the hands of her whites, would be to leave her to repeat her 
crimes and savagery, not only upon her blacks, but upon the 
nation. 

6th. The whole world will loathe and abhor us, if now, when 
the negroes have saved us, we shall leave them helpless in the 
hands of their enemies — enemies, too, who, because they have 
saved us, will hate them more than ever. 

1th. God's controversy with us will still remain, if we shall still 
persist in refusing rights to those whom He has chosen to wrap 
in black skins. Can we afford the continuance of a controversy, 
which has already cost us so much treasure and blood ? 

But it is said that we are inconsistent in requiring the Govern- 
ment to exact suffrage for the Southern blacks, whilst the North- 
ern blacks are generally deprived of it. No, we are not. Though 
such deprivation is unreasonable and wicked, the Government has 
not the power to forbid it. Moreover, lack of suffrage does not 
expose Northern blacks to such wrongs as it does Southern 
blacks ; nor does it so peril our nation in the one case as it does 
in the other. 

It is also said that we are inconsistent in making so much 
account of having the Southern black men vote, whilst the 
Northern women are denied suffrage. I admit the utter injustice 
of this denial. But it must be remembered that they who vote 
for women arc their friends — their husbands, fathers, brothers, 
sons ; whilst they who vote for the Southern blacks are their 
despisers and haters. So, too, it must be remembered that the 
denial of suffrage in the one case is not fraught with the peril that 
it is in the other. 

I maybe asked whether I would have entirely illiterate persons 
allowed to vote. I answer, that where they are but a small por- 
tion of the people, I would ; but that, where they are a large 
one, I would not, unless there be some special reason demanding 
it. If the disloyal Avhites of the South shall be denied a vote, 
(and even the humblest of them should in this respect be put 
upon a probation of at least a dozen years,) then let it be required 
of the blacks, in common with the whites, that they shall be able 
to read and write before being allowed to vote. But if the dis- 
loyal whites of the South shall be allowed to vote forthwith, then, 
by all that is reasonable and righteous, by all that Ave owe to the 
loyal blacks, and by all that our national safety calls for, those 



68 GEREIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

loyal blacks should also be allowed to vote foi'thwith. Surely, 
surely, this is but a very moderate claim. 

I own it is bad to have ignorance vote. But infinitely worse is 
it to have disloyalty vote. Welcome, loyal ignorance : but no 
patience with disloyal intelligence. 

Many say that the abolition of slavery should content us for the 
present, and that we should wait patiently for further instalments 
of justice to the black man. But if now, under all the force and 
freshness of his claims upon our gratitude, we can be so base as to 
withhold any of his essential rights, very little has he to hope from 
us in the future. 

It is but too plain that if the Reconstruction Bill now before 
Congress shall become a law, the blacks of the rebel States will 
be denied suffrage, and their whites alone will have it ; the loyal 
element in their population will be denied it, and the disloyal ele- 
ment will have it ; in still other words, our friends in those States 
will have no political poAver, and our enemies in them have all. 
Not to speak of the deep injustice and cruel ingratitude of thus 
treating those who have saved us, what folly, what madness is it, 
to trifle in this wise with the future of our nation ! Horrid as is 
the present war, it has not sufficed to bring the nation to repent- 
ance. A more horrid one may be necessary. Were I not an 
abolitionist, I would, if this Bill succeed, predict a war of races 
at the South. But I remember that abolition prophets are 
treated as Cassandras — as unworthy of the least belief. For 
twenty years they were foretelling (even on the floor of Con- 
gress it was foretold) that slavery, unless put away peaceably, 
would soon and surely go out in blood. But their predictions 
were only laughed at. 

Louisiana, considering the circumstances, made a very creditable 
approach to justice. Her Constitution, far better at this point than 
that of our own State, permits her Legislature to make voters of 
her black men : and in such circumstances a permission falls little 
short of a command. Had the plan before Congress prohibited 
the forfeiture of civil or political rights, by reason of race or 
origin, I should, notwithstanding her Constitution falls short of such 
prohibition, have been reluctant to oppose the reentrance of Louis- 
iana into the sisterhood of States. The other Reconstructed 
States, being right at this vital point, she would soon have been 
also. But they being wrong, she will be far more likely to sink 
to their level than to lift up her advanced Constitution into the 
full recognition of the equal rights of all men. 

Speaking of Louisiana, brings to my mind the censures cast by 
some of the radical abolitionists upon General Banks. I trust that 
these censures are entirely xmdeserved. I regard him not only as 
a brave, patriotic, and able man, but as a sincere friend of the 
colored race. I thanked and loved him, when I read of his hav- 
ing the little black girl lifted up on the cannon. He might not 
have meant by it all that it symbolized. But, to me, it was the lift- 
ing up of the representative of her race from feebleness to strength. 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 69 

To me, this child's riding on the cannon foreshadowed the tri- 
umphant progress of that race. And I am informed that the lib- 
eral feature in the Constitution of Louisiana, to which I have re- 
ferred, is due preeminently to General Banks. 

Her Constitution puts an end to slavery in Louisiana. There 
are some restraints, notwithstanding, upon those who were so 
recently its victims. I trust that they are no more and no greater 
than the perils and exigencies of war call for; and that they will 
all be withdrawn upon the return of peace. I confess, however, 
that there is no certainty that justice, at any point, will be done to 
the black man in any rebel or, indeed, in any anti-rebel State in 
which the right of suffrage is denied him. 

But, to return from this digression, I trust I made it plain 
that the Constitution does in various clauses forbid slavery. 
Plain, too, I might have made it, that in its whole Spirit and 
tenor it forbids it. But what if it did not, would slavery, 
therefore, be law ? Most piracy and murder be forbidden by 
the Constitution in order that they be not law ? Much less 
need slavery, a worse crime than either, be forbidden by it 
in order that it be not law. I trust, too, that I made it plain 
that those clauses of the Constitution, which are relied on to 
prove that it permits slavery, do not permit it. Let me now 
add that even if the Constitution did permit slavery, slavery 
would not be law. All will admit that no words, however strong 
or ingeniously chosen and arranged, could suffice to make piracy 
law. How emphatic, then, must be the incapacity of slavery to 
be law! For, amongst all the piracies of earth, slavery is the 
superlative piracy. Indeed, what other piracy is not reduced to 
a mere peccadillo, when brought into comparison with the over- 
shadowing slaveholding piracy! So, too, all will admit that no 
words can make murder law. But the crime of murder, like that 
of piracy, is outdone by the crime of slavery. Every wise parent 
had far rather his child were murdered than enslaved. The mur- 
dered is killed but once. The slave is "killed all the day long." 
The murdered is robbed but of life. The slave, robbed of all ex- 
cept life, is cursed with remaining life instead of being relieved 
by death. Murder kills but the body. Slavery the soul. Mur- 
der does not degrade the manhood of the murdered. Slavery 
makes merchandise of manhood. Murder denies not that its vic- 
tim was placed by God upon the heights of immortality. But 
slavery drags down its victim from those glorious heights to the 
category of brutes and things. Murder kills but a few, and spares 
the masses to unfold their powers and reach after every enjoy- 
ment. But slavery allows a few to tyrannize over the masses, and 
worse than murder them by working and whipping them worse 
than brutes are Avorked and whipped; by robbing them of their 
right to letters and wages and marriage ; and by leaving them no 
rights whatever whereby to protect themselves "from the storm of 
wrongs and outrages which sweeps incessantly over their lot. 

I have argued that nothing can make slavery law. I go farther, 



70 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

and say that law can not be made. And here I have reached a 
point where more than at any other, the world needs to be rev- 
olutionized. This making of law, of civil, theological, and other 
law, has made up the greater part of human sorrows. Law-mak- 
ers there never should have been — only law-declarers : and these 
should have declared nothing to be law but what is natural. Na- 
ture alone is our law, and only so far as we let her, and her alone, 
be law unto us, do Ave or can we honor the God of nature. An 
enactment that wood is iron or iron wood would be void, because 
at war with nature. For the same reason an enactment to en- 
slave a man, that is to transmute him into a chattel, is void. The 
legislature is to leave wood to be wood, iron to be iron, and man 
to be man. Advancing wisdom and civilization will yet bring 
the courts to this ground. They will yet hold that whatever 
tramples upon or ignores nature is not laAV. I do not mean they 
will hold that to be no law, which simply goes beyond or falls 
short of the demands of nature. For instance, interest or the 
use of money is reasonable, and, therefore, agreeable to nature. 
The legislature, in regulating the rates, may go too high or too 
low. Nevertheless, as the subject-matter does not confront na- 
ture, the courts will not confront the legislature. So, too, where 
the legislature is regulating the punishment due to crimes, the sub- 
ject-matter is one not in conflict but in harmony with nature ; and, 
therefore, though in one instance the prescribed punishment may 
be excessive and in another deficient, the courts, nevertheless, will 
feel themselves bound by the will of the legislature. But where, 
as in the case of enslaving or chattelizing men, the subject-matter 
is itself foreign to nature and an outrage upon nature, there the 
courts will hold that there is no law to interpret, and that the 
action of the legislature is void. In other words, where the sub- 
ject-matter of the legislation sets aside nature, the courts will set 
aside the legislation. 

Will the Supreme Court of the United States ever rise up to 
this level of reason and nature ? Will this Court, hitherto guilty 
of so much unreasonableness and unnaturalness, at last yield itself 
to these high claims of reason and nature ? Will this Court, so 
long a bulwark of slavery, become a bulwark of freedom ? It 
will when it shall pronounce the truth that slavery, containing in 
itself nothing of right, nor reason, nor nature, is therefore destitute 
of all the elements of law, and is no law : and that, containing in 
itself the grossest and guiltiest violations of right, and reason, 
and nature, it is to be pursued as the most execrable outlaw. So 
preeminently instructive have been the lessons of the last few 
years, that possibly several members of this Court are already 
educated up to the necessaiy preparation for pronouncing this 
conclusive truth against all the pretensions of slavery. There is a 
man in this land — he is emphatically a man — whom I have long 
known, and as long admired and loved. He was once in a very 
small minority, and as poor in the public favor as were Ave, Avho 
were his felloAA r -laborers, and Avere identified with him in both 



GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 71 

cause and party. But so swift of late years has been the wheel 
of revolution in this country, that he is now one of the members 
of that Court. I trust that I shall not be regarded as violating 

the sac-redness of private correspondence, when I say that as long 
as nine years ago this noble man, in speaking of slavery, declared: 
"I shall rejoice to witness such progress in society, that courts 
will regard the total denial of rights as so contrary to the law of 
nature, that no legislative enactment can entitle it to recognition." 
And again, a few weeks after : u With you, I am for freedom 
every where and for slavery nowhere ; for freedom for all, and 
slavery for none. Most heartily will I rejoice when the people 
and their judges shall be educated up to the point of regarding 
slavery as so great a wrong that it can not be legalized." Mark 
his words: "and their judges" ! And now, behold, he is himself 
one of their judges ! ay, and their chief judge ! Then, eight years 
ago, he said: "If you can find me judges, Avho will decide that slavery 
is so clearly and palpably repugnant to reason and natural justice, 
that it can be sustained nowhere and by no law, I shall be the 
last man to object to the decision." Again, mark his words: "If 
you can find me judges"! And lo, lie finds himself one of their 
judges! ay, and at such a time as this! a time when Providence 
has so wondrously prepared the way for the Supreme Court of 
the United States to render signal service to humanity. Well 
might we apostrophize our new Chief Justice in the words of 
Mordecai to Esther : " And who knoweth whether thou art como 
to the kingdom for such a time as this ?" 

I am sure that my friend will pardon me for the liberty I have 
taken with his letters. It honors him to make public the wise 
Avords I have quoted from them. That it does mankind good, 
will, however, go farther to gain me his forgiveness. Precious 
words were these to me when I received them ! Precious words 
to one who, through many years of reproach and discouragement, 
had been invoking such utterances from leading minds ! 

Let me here say that, in adverting to those great duties with 
which great passing events are charging the Supreme Court, I 
had no reference to the Proclamations of Freedom. I assume 
that tins Court will recognize the validity of those papers and 
rejoice in their operation. An insurrection, involving but a County, 
or even one involving a whole State, may very properly be met 
by Constitutional law only — by that law of which that Court is 
the interpreter. But the Avar which many millions are waging 
against us — so many that the nations, including even our own, 
have been constrained to accord belligerent rights to them — 
is one not to be conducted by the provisions of the Consti- 
tution. A Avar of such magnitude is to be conducted in accord- 
ance with International Law. I confess that I see no rea- 
son Avhy the President's military acts in this Avar, any more 
than Grant's or Farragut's, should be questioned by the Supreme 
Court. These Proclamations and their Orders are alike .amenable 
to the law of Avar, and to that law only. Both the Proclamations 



72 GERRIT SMITH ON" THE REBELLION. 

and the Orders may often come incidentally before this Court : 
but so long as it sees them to be in accordance with the law of 
war, it will not stand in their way. 

Just here I might be asked whether I hold that such of the 
slaves within the scope of the President's Proclamation of first 
January, 1863, as shall be still in the hands of the enemy at the 
close of the war, will be entitled to freedom by virtue of that 
Proclamation. My answer would be that I do. I go farther, 
and say that the war should never be closed, nay, can never be 
closed, until they are free. 

And now some of you are ready to quote Vattel and Grotius, 
and other publicists, to prove that the property of our enemy in 
war is not ours until we have reduced it to actual possession. 
My reply is, that slaves are not property, but men ; and that in all 
our reasoning in the case we shall, provided we are ourselves men, 
treat them as men. 

The Proclamation on its face set the slaves within its purview 
unconditionally free. Its friends hold that it did set them uncon- 
ditionally free. I am amongst its friends. Nevertheless, I hold 
that it did not. It proffered them freedom on a condition — a con- 
dition none the less real because unexpressed. This condition 
was the proper response of the slaves to the Proclamation. Had 
they flouted it, refused its boon, and preferred working and fight- 
ing for our enemy, would any thing have been due them by 
virtue of the Proclamation ? Certainly not. The Proclamation 
was made to win them to us ; and they had no right to profit by 
it, if they refused to be won to us. So far as they have not ful- 
filled this implied condition in the Proclamation, we owe them 
nothing by reason of the Proclamation. So far as they have, we 
are their debtors. 

And now the way is prepared to inquire what classes and por- 
tions of the slaves in question it would be right for us to leave in 
slavery. 

First. Shall the Avives and children of those who have escaped 
to us, and have fought for us, be left in slavery ? Shall the wives 
and children of those who have recently come to us, and of those 
who shall come to us, be left in slavery ? Shall, for instance, the 
mothers, wives and children, who begged and wept to be allowed 
to come along with Sherman's army, and with their sons, husbands 
and fathers, who had joined it, be left in slavery ? To all these 
questions you will return an emphatic " No." 

Second. Shall the families of the slaves, who were detected 
in their attempt to get within our lines, and were flogged to 
death, or otherwise put to death, be left in slavery ? Or shall 
they who survived their punishment for such offense, or shall 
their families, be left in slavery ? Here again you are quick to 
say, " No." 

Third. Shall the slaves too aged and infirm to do more than 
advise and encourage the young and strong to peril all to get to 
us and help us, and too poor to do more than make up for each 



GEERIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 73 

that little bundle of rage that is the sum total of the worldly 
goods wilh which the slave sets out in his adventure, and who 
with their whole hearfrdo all this — shall they be left in slavery? 
Not with your consent. 

Fourth. Shall those old slave saints, to whose glowing prayers 
in behalf of our cause God loves to listen, and whose bodily feeble- 
ness disables them from doing more for us than pray — shall they 
be left in slavery? You protest against it. 

Fifth. Shall any of these millions, whose hearts arc with us, 
and who have done for us what they could, though they have not 
been able to get to us — shall they be left in slavery ? By no 
means, is your answer. 

Sixth. Shall any, who have Buffered from the Proclamation by 
reason of being brought under a stricter surveillance, and of being 
made the objects of increased jealousy and hatred, and this especial- 
ly because of their attempts, or discovered desires, to avail them- 
selves of the Proclamation — shall any of these be left in slav- 
ery ? Earnestly would you oppose it. 

And now, after all these exceptions, what classes or portions 
of the slaves within the scope of the Proclamation would there 
be to be left in slavery ? I know of none. If there be amongst 
all these slaves an individual, who out of his wicked heart chooses 
the side of the enemy, I admit that the Proclamation owes him 
nothing, though I do not admit that even he deserves to be a 
slave. No man is bad enough to deserve that. 

I proceed to say that the implied contract in the Proclamation 
between the nation and the slaves, has been faithfully fulfilled on 
their part ; that, under the invitations and promises of the Proc- 
lamation, they have done what they could for us ; and that now it 
remains for the nation to fulfill on its part. For her not to do so 
would be to disgrace herself with the most signal instance of perfidy 
toward the helpless and worthy poor which the world has ever 
seen. Many fear that the President will shuffle off his responsi- 
bilities in this case upon the Supreme Court. I do not. He is 
an eminently wise and good man ; and he can not fail to see that 
it is for him to fulfill, on the part of the nation, her contract with 
the slaves. He will not leave their freedom to any contingency. 
Have no fear that he will overshadow his well-earned fame with 
eternal infamy. A simple parallel, and I will pass on from the 
Proclamation to other topics. Suppose Sherman, believing it to 
be vital to his success to secure the friendship and help of a certain 
village or city in his way through Georgia, had proposed to stand 
by it if it would stand by him — to allow it to take hold of the 
strength of his army and his nation if it Avould consent to give 
up its hold upon the Confederacy. And then suppose that the 
proposition, having been accepted and faithfully lived up toby the 
village or city, Sherman should shirk his responsibilities and leave 
it to some one else to say what should be done on his part. The 
curses of the world would fall upon him so thick and so hot, as to 
wither up the last feather in the proud plumes of his military 



74 GERRIT SMITH ON THE REBELLION. 

glory. And now for the parallel. The President, who, like 
Sherman, is also a military commander, and who acted in the 
case solely as such — for he had no right to'act in it in any other 
capacity — the President, I say, seeing the straits to which our 
nation was reduced, and that it was on the brink of ruin, proposed 
to save it by obtaining the friendship and help of the slaves. To 
this end he promised them, provided they would cast in their lot 
with us, their freedom, and to maintain it by the whole power of the 
nation, and 'to honor such as were "of suitable condition" with 
places in " the armed service of the United States." Moreover, 
he invoked "the considerate judgment of mankind and the gra- 
cious favor of Almighty God " upon the promise. 

Time has verified the wisdom of this great measure of the Pres- 
ident. The measure has brought salvation to our country. God 
forbid that we should throw away the salvation, as to no small 
extent we shall, if the Reconstruction policy shall be such as to 
leave a vestige of slavery, or even such as to leave the loyal element 
of the Southern population politically disabled, and therefore an 
easy prey to the disloyal element ! 

lx I said that the Proclamation had brought salvation to our 
country. The slaves fulfilled on their part the implied contract 
in the Proclamation, and thus became our saviours. Those of 
them who could, came to us ; and those who could not come to 
us, nevertheless worked for us, as far as they could. Fear not 
that the President will requite this devotion to our cause with the 
leaving of a portion of these saviours in slavery. The bargain he 
made with them he will not break. Better that the nation perish 
than that such a bargain be broken ! 

But to return to the line of argument which I was pursuing 
before I struck oif upon the Proclamation. I had argued that 
where the subject-matter of the legislation, such as the enslaving 
or chattelizing of men, is at war with nature, there can be no law. 
I now add that nothing is law which can not be administered in 
the spirit of honesty. Every judge, every commissioner, who 
remanded his poor trembling brother into slavery, knew that he 
was dishonest in doing so — knew that he was not doing as he 
would be done by. For he knew that, were he a slave, he would 
not recognize slavery to be law, and therefore obligatory upon his 
conscience. For he knew that, were he a slave, he would escape 
if he could; that he would mount his master's fleetest horse if he 
could ; that he would shoot his pursuing master if he could. 

This is indeed a horrid war through which we are passing. 
We are working out, in treasure and tears and blood incomput- 
able, the heavy penalty of our crimes against Freedom and Justice. 
God pity the tens of thousands whom this war has maimed and 
disabled for life ! God pity the ten thousand families whom it 
has bereaved and desolated ! God pity the countless poor under 
its crushing burdens! And yet great good is to come of this 
war. The greatest of all the good will be the higher appreciation 
of man. This Avar is a judgment upon us for our disparagement 



GER11IT SMITH ON" THE REBELLION". 



75 



and contempt ofi man. Its terrible, lessons are teaching us to dis- 
parage and contemn him no longer. Am I told that we did hold 
him in esteem ? I answer that it was his accidents rather than 
his essence. For instance, he was esteemed who was white, or 
wealthy, or wise, polished or promoted. But he who had but 
mere manhood to commend him, was made little account of. 
Constitutions and creeds were held sacred and inviolable. But 
man, "the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope of heaven, 
alas, how cheap! Surely, no right-minded man can say of this 
war, "To what purpose is this waste?" even if he look no farther 
than to the fact that the highest judicial place, so recently occu- 
pied by one who could not ^associate the rights of manhood with 
a black skin, is now occupied by one who holds, not only that " a 
man's a man for a' that," but that, under whatever misfortune of 
calamities, nay, under whatever guilt of crimes, the rights of 
manhood remain indestructible. 

I said that man will be more appreciated in consequence of 
this Avar. I add that this new appreciation will give us new and 
better laws and new and better judicial interpretations of them. 
Legislatures and courts sink or rise as the regard for man sinks 
or rises. The one legitimate end of law upon earth is the»pro- 
tection of human rights. Nevertheless, the earth over, man has 
been held in so low esteem, that, the earth over, legislatures and 
courts have clone scarcely less for the destruction than for the 
protection of human rights. I said that law on earth is solely for 
the protection of human rights. Many add — and of divine rights 
also. I do not. I hold that God is wise and strong enough to 
take care of His own rights; and that He bids us take care of 
ours, and leave Him to take care of His. We best honor God's 
rights in upholding man's. Under this accursed plea of look- 
ing after God's rights, humanity has, in all ages, suffered its 
heaviest woes. From this has come the worst type of bigotry, 
intolerance, persecution. From this have come, not only the 
Inquisition, but numberless forms of torture for both the body 
and the soul. Even so intelligent a man as Alexander II. Ste- 
phens falls back for his justification of slavery on this fanatical 
regard for God's rights. For, like most others, he interprets 
the belchings of drunken Noah into a curse of God — a curse, it is 
true, on Canaan : but, by one of those frequent ecclesiastical ac- 
commodations, on poor Africa also. 

But I must close. It is not better laws only that we need. We 
need a better religion also. Our laws have been on the side of 
oppression. Our religion has gone to the polls and voted for the 
buyers and sellers of men. How shall we get better laws and a 
better religion ? Only by getting juster and higher conceptions ol 
the dignity, and grandeur, and sacredness of man. Our laws and our 
religion will conform precisely to those conceptions. Contemptible 
will be the laws and religion of every people who think contempt- 
uously of man. But beautiful and blessed will be the laws and the 
religion which reverence human nature, even when in its lowest 



76 GERRIT SMITH ON" THE REBELLION. 

condition — even when in ignorance, and rags, and chains. This 
is the religion which Jesus taught. He lived, and labored, and 
died, not for this nor that sort of men, but for all men ; not for men 
of these or those characteristics, these or those surroundings, these 
or those accidents, but for men of whatever type, or condition, or 
character. He identified himself with all men, simply because 
they were men. 

I am old, and shall not live to see it : and you, M'ho are young, 
may not. But the day is coming — it is hastening on — when, all 
over this broad and beautiful land, nature, so dear to all who 
give themselves up to the study of her, so sure in her guidance, 
so full of instructions, so full of God, shall inspire and mould both 
laws and religion. Come, blessed day ! Come quickly ! And 
then the natural rights of men shall no more be invaded in the 
name of law, nor in the name of religion. Then Civil Govern- 
ment, no more their oppressor, will be the strength of the weak 
and the shield of the defenseless. Then the Church, no longer 
the betrayer of the poor, and no longer leaguing itself with and 
voting with the enemies of the poor, will be their peaceful haven 
from the storms that pelt them without ; their resting-place 
fron* persecutions ; their inviting bosom of pity and love. 



c 



.HFe'07 



